title: Cre/lox-regulated transgenic zebrafish model with conditional myc-induced T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
abstract: We have created a stable transgenic rag2-EGFP-mMyc zebrafish line that develops GFP-labeled T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL), allowing visualization of the onset and spread of this disease. Here, we show that leukemias from this transgenic line are highly penetrant and render animals moribund by 80.7 +/- 17.6 days of life (+/-1 SD, range = 50-158 days). These T cell leukemias are clonally aneuploid, can be transplanted into irradiated recipient fish, and express the zebrafish orthologues of the human T-ALL oncogenes tal1/scl and lmo2, thus providing an animal model for the most prevalent molecular subgroup of human T-ALL. Because T-ALL develops very rapidly in rag2-EGFP-mMyc transgenic fish (in which "mMyc" represents mouse c-Myc), this line can only be maintained by in vitro fertilization. Thus, we have created a conditional transgene in which the EGFP-mMyc oncogene is preceded by a loxed dsRED2 gene and have generated stable rag2-loxP-dsRED2-loxP-EGFP-mMyc transgenic zebrafish lines, which have red fluorescent thymocytes and do not develop leukemia. Transgenic progeny from one of these lines can be induced to develop T-ALL by injecting Cre RNA into one-cell-stage embryos, demonstrating the utility of the Cre/lox system in the zebrafish and providing an essential step in preparing this model for chemical and genetic screens designed to identify modifiers of Myc-induced T-ALL.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: David M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Langenau
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Stephane
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Berghmans
authors.forename: John P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Kanki
authors.forename: Jeffery L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Kutok
authors.forename: A Thomas
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Look
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D030801:Animals, Genetically Modified; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D016326:Extracellular Matrix Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D016259:Genes, myc; D005819:Genetic Markers; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D019426:Integrases / Q000378:metabolism*; D015459:Leukemia-Lymphoma, Adult T-Cell / Q000235:genetics*; D051379:Mice; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D008249:Protein-Lysine 6-Oxidase / Q000378:metabolism; D015027:Zebrafish / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D016326:Extracellular Matrix Proteins; D005819:Genetic Markers; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; C499311:RAG2 protein, human; C499308:Rag2 protein, mouse; C064655:V(D)J recombination activating protein 2; C485184:enhanced green fluorescent protein; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins; C077112:Lox protein, mouse; D008249:Protein-Lysine 6-Oxidase; C045073:Cre recombinase; D019426:Integrases