Hematopoietic gene expression profile in zebrafish kidney marrow.
The zebrafish kidney marrow is considered to be the organ of definitive hematopoiesis, analogous to the mammalian bone marrow. We have sequenced 26,143 ESTs and isolated 304 cDNAs with putative full-length ORF from a zebrafish kidney marrow cDNA library. The ESTs formed 7,742 assemblies, representing both previously identified zebrafish ESTs (56%) and recently discovered zebrafish ESTs (44%). About 30% of these EST assemblies have orthologues in humans, including 1,282 disease-associated genes in the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) database. Comparison of the effective and regulatory molecules related to erythroid functions across species suggests a good conservation from zebrafish to human. Interestingly, both embryonic and adult zebrafish globin genes showed higher homology to the human embryonic globin genes than to the human fetal/adult ones, consistent with evo-devo correlation hypothesis. In addition, conservation of a whole set of transcription factors involved in globin gene switch suggests the regulatory network for such remodeling mechanism existed before the divergence of the teleost and the ancestor of mammals. We also carried out whole-mount mRNA in situ hybridization assays for 493 cDNAs and identified 80 genes (16%) with tissue-specific expression during the first five days of zebrafish development. Twenty-six of these genes were specifically expressed in hematopoietic or vascular tissues, including three previously unidentified zebrafish genes: coro1a, nephrosin, and dab2. Our results indicate that conserved genetic programs regulate vertebrate hematopoiesis and vasculogenesis, and support the role of the zebrafish as an important animal model for studying both normal development and the molecular pathogenesis of human blood diseases.
Song
Huai-Dong
HD
State Key Lab for Medical Genomics, Shanghai Institute of Hematology, Ruijin Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Second Medical University, Shanghai 200025, China.
Sun
Xiao-Jian
XJ
Deng
Min
M
Zhang
Guo-Wei
GW
Zhou
Yi
Y
Wu
Xin-Yan
XY
Sheng
Yan
Y
Chen
Yi
Y
Ruan
Zheng
Z
Jiang
Chun-Lei
CL
Fan
Hui-Yong
HY
Zon
Leonard I
LI
Kanki
John P
JP
Liu
Ting Xi
TX
Look
A Thomas
AT
Chen
Zhu
Z
D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D004920:Erythropoiesis / Q000235:genetics; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D015723:Gene Library; D006410:Hematopoiesis / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D017403:In Situ Hybridization; D008666:Metalloendopeptidases / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016366:Open Reading Frames; D010802:Phylogeny; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D013045:Species Specificity; D015027:Zebrafish / Q000196:embryology / Q000235:genetics*
D018076:DNA, Complementary; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D008666:Metalloendopeptidases; C106352:nephrosin