PUBLICATION
Zebrafish vasa is required for germ-cell differentiation and maintenance
- Authors
- Hartung, O., Forbes, M.M., Marlow, F.L.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-140927-6
- Date
- 2014
- Source
- Molecular reproduction and development 81(10): 946-61 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Forbes, Meredyth, Marlow, Florence
- Keywords
- none
- MeSH Terms
-
- Animals
- Apoptosis/genetics
- Cell Differentiation/physiology*
- DEAD-box RNA Helicases/genetics
- DEAD-box RNA Helicases/metabolism*
- Female
- Germ Cells/cytology
- Germ Cells/metabolism*
- Infertility, Male/genetics
- Infertility, Male/metabolism
- Male
- Mutation
- Pachytene Stage/physiology*
- Stem Cells/cytology
- Stem Cells/metabolism*
- Tumor Suppressor Protein p53/genetics
- Tumor Suppressor Protein p53/metabolism
- Zebrafish/genetics
- Zebrafish/metabolism*
- Zebrafish Proteins/genetics
- Zebrafish Proteins/metabolism*
- PubMed
- 25257909 Full text @ Mol. Reprod. Dev.
Citation
Hartung, O., Forbes, M.M., Marlow, F.L. (2014) Zebrafish vasa is required for germ-cell differentiation and maintenance. Molecular reproduction and development. 81(10):946-61.
Abstract
Vasa is a universal marker of the germ line in animals, yet mutations disrupting vasa cause sexually dimorphic infertility, with impaired development of the ovary in some animals and the testis in others. The basis for this sexually dimorphic requirement for Vasa is not clear; in most animals examined, both the male and female gonad express vasa throughout the life of the germ line. Here we characterized a loss-of-function mutation disrupting zebrafish vasa. We show that maternally provided Vasa is stable through the first ten days of development in zebrafish, and thus likely fulfills any early roles for Vasa during germ-line specification, migration, survival, and maintenance. Although zygotic Vasa is not essential for the development of juvenile gonads, vasa mutants develop exclusively as sterile males. Furthermore, phenotypes of vasa;p53 compound mutants are indistinguishable from those of vasa mutants, therefore the failure of vasa mutants to differentiate as females and to support germ-cell development in the testis is not due to p53-mediated apoptosis. Instead, we found that failure to progress beyond the pachytene stage of meiosis causes the loss of germ-line stem cells, leaving empty somatic tubules. Our studies provide insight into the function of zebrafish vasa during female meiosis, differentiation, and maintenance of germ-line stem cells.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping