title: Histological Characterization of the Dicer1 Mutant Zebrafish Retina.
abstract: DICER1, a multidomain RNase III endoribonuclease, plays a critical role in microRNA (miRNA) and RNA-interference (RNAi) functional pathways. Loss of Dicer1 affects different developmental processes. Dicer1 is essential for retinal development and maintenance. DICER1 was recently shown to have another function of silencing the toxicity of Alu RNAs in retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells, which are involved in the pathogenesis of age related macular degeneration. In this study, we characterized a Dicer1 mutant fish line, which carries a nonsense mutation (W1457Ter) induced by N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea mutagenesis. Zebrafish DICER1 protein is highly conserved in the evolution. Zebrafish Dicer1 is expressed at the earliest stages of zebrafish development and persists into late developmental stages; it is widely expressed in adult tissues. Homozygous Dicer1 mutant fish (DICER1(W1457Ter/W1457Ter)) have an arrest in early growth with significantly smaller eyes and are dead at 14-18 dpf. Heterozygous Dicer1 mutant fish have similar retinal structure to that of control fish; the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells are normal with no sign of degeneration at the age of 20 months.
authors.affiliation: Cornea Research Chair, Department of Optometry, King Saud University, P.O. Box 10219, Riyadh 11433, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Saeed
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Akhtar
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow G4 0BA, UK.
authors.forename: Sarita Rani
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Patnaik
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow G4 0BA, UK.
authors.forename: Rakesh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kotapati Raghupathy
authors.affiliation: Cornea Research Chair, Department of Optometry, King Saud University, P.O. Box 10219, Riyadh 11433, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Turki M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Al-Mubrad
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow G4 0BA, UK.
authors.forename: John A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Craft
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow G4 0BA, UK.
authors.forename: Xinhua
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-3760-3019
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Shu