title: Pten function in zebrafish: anything but a fish story.
abstract: Zebrafish is an excellent model system for the analysis of gene function. We and others use zebrafish to investigate the function of the tumor suppressor, Pten, in tumorigenesis and embryonic development. Zebrafish have two pten genes, ptena and ptenb. The recently identified N-terminal extension of human PTEN that may facilitate cell membrane transfer, appears not to be conserved in zebrafish Ptena or Ptenb. Mutants that retain a single wild type pten allele develop tumors, predominantly hemangiosarcomas. Homozygous double mutants are embryonic lethal. Zebrafish embryos lacking functional Pten display enhanced proliferation of endothelial cells, resulting in hyperbranching of blood vessels. In addition, ptena-/-ptenb-/- mutant embryos display enhanced proliferation of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells and concomitant arrest of differentiation, although Pten-deficient cells commit to all blood cell lineages. Zebrafish is an ideal model for intravital imaging and future work using ptena-/-ptenb-/- mutants will enhance our understanding of the function of Pten in vivo.
authors.affiliation: Hubrecht Institute - KNAW and University Medical Center Utrecht, 3584 CT Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Miriam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stumpf
authors.affiliation: Hubrecht Institute - KNAW and University Medical Center Utrecht, 3584 CT Utrecht, The Netherlands; CNRS, UMR 5235, Dynamique des Interactions Membranaires Normales et Pathologiques, Univ Montpellier 2, 34095 Montpellier, France.
authors.forename: Suma
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Choorapoikayil
authors.affiliation: Hubrecht Institute - KNAW and University Medical Center Utrecht, 3584 CT Utrecht, The Netherlands; Institute of Biology Leiden, Leiden University, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands. Electronic address: j.denhertog@hubrecht.eu.
authors.forename: Jeroen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: den Hertog
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D030801:Animals, Genetically Modified; D006801:Humans; D023421:Models, Animal; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D051059:PTEN Phosphohydrolase / Q000502:physiology*; D013045:Species Specificity; D025521:Tumor Suppressor Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D015027:Zebrafish; D029961:Zebrafish Proteins / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D025521:Tumor Suppressor Proteins; D029961:Zebrafish Proteins; D051059:PTEN Phosphohydrolase; C494929:PTEN protein, human
keywords: Angiogenesis; Hemangiosarcoma; Hematopoiesis; PTEN; Zebrafish