Light reaches the very heart of the zebrafish clock.
Zebrafish are typically used as a model system to study various aspects of developmental biology, largely as a consequence of their ex vivo development, high degree of transparency, and, of course, ability to perform forward genetic mutant screens. More recently, zebrafish have been developed as a model system with which to study circadian clocks. Cell lines generated from early-stage zebrafish embryos contain clocks that are directly light-responsive. We describe recent experiments using single-cell luminescent imaging approaches to study clock function in this novel cell line system. Furthermore, studies examining the process of entrainment to light pulses within this cell population are described in this review, as are experiments examining light-responsiveness of early-stage zebrafish embryos.
Carr
Amanda-Jayne F
AJ
Centre for Cellular and Molecular Dynamics, Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, University College London, London, UK.
Tamai
T Katherine
TK
Young
Lucy C
LC
Ferrer
Veronica
V
Dekens
Marcus P
MP
Whitmore
David
D