Journal article
Vsx2 in the zebrafish retina: Restricted lineages through derepression
M Vitorino, PR Jusuf, D Maurus, Y Kimura, SI Higashijima, WA Harris
Neural Development | BMC | Published : 2009
Open access
Abstract
Background. The neurons in the vertebrate retina arise from multipotent retinal progenitor cells (RPCs). It is not clear, however, which progenitors are multipotent or why they are multipotent. Results. In this study we show that the homeodomain transcription factor Vsx2 is initially expressed throughout the retinal epithelium, but later it is downregulated in all but a minor population of bipolar cells and all Müller glia. The Vsx2-negative daughters of Vsx2-positive RPCs divide and give rise to all other cell types in the retina. Vsx2 is a repressor whose targets include transcription factors such as Vsx1, which is expressed in the progenitors of distinct non-Vsx2 bipolars, and the basic h..
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Funding Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Wellcome Trust (WAH), Gulbenkian PhD Programme in Biomedicine and Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia studentship (SFRH/BD/15224/2004; MV), Australian CJ Martin NHMRC fellowship (PJ) for supporting this work. We thank Steven Leach for the Tg(ptf1a: GFP) line, James M Fadool for the 5E11 antibody and Margozata Kloc for the Hermes antibody. We thank Thomas Czerny for the pSGH2 vector, David Turner for the pCS+ vector and Ichiro Masai for the pCS2-ath5-Myc construct. We also thank Kathryn Lilley for making the Typhoon fluo imager available for our use. We would like to thank Julien Falk for his support and insights on the project. We thank Adrian McNabb for technical assistance and Michalis Agathocleous, Kate Lewis, Michel Cayouette, Rod Bremner and Rick Livesey for comments on the manuscript.