title: Ancestral genomic duplication of the insulin gene in tilapia: An analysis of possible implications for clinical islet xenotransplantation using donor islets from transgenic tilapia expressing a humanized insulin gene.
abstract: Tilapia, a teleost fish, have multiple large anatomically discrete islets which are easy to harvest, and when transplanted into diabetic murine recipients, provide normoglycemia and mammalian-like glucose tolerance profiles. Tilapia insulin differs structurally from human insulin which could preclude their use as islet donors for xenotransplantation. Therefore, we produced transgenic tilapia with islets expressing a humanized insulin gene. It is now known that fish genomes may possess an ancestral duplication and so tilapia may have a second insulin gene. Therefore, we cloned, sequenced, and characterized the tilapia insulin 2 transcript and found that its expression is negligible in islets, is not islet-specific, and would not likely need to be silenced in our transgenic fish.
authors.affiliation: a Biology Department , Dalhousie University, Halifax , Nova Scotia , Canada.
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Hrytsenko
authors.affiliation: a Biology Department , Dalhousie University, Halifax , Nova Scotia , Canada.
authors.forename: Bill
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Pohajdak
authors.affiliation: b Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine/Calgary Laboratory Services , University of Calgary , Calgary , AB , Canada.|c Department of Pediatrics , University of Calgary , Calgary , AB , Canada.
authors.forename: James R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Wright
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D030801:Animals, Genetically Modified; D003921:Diabetes Mellitus, Experimental / Q000601:surgery; D005951:Glucose Tolerance Test; D006801:Humans; D007328:Insulin / Q000235:genetics*; D016381:Islets of Langerhans Transplantation / Q000379:methods*; D051379:Mice; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017210:Tilapia / Q000235:genetics*; D014183:Transplantation, Heterologous
chemical_list: D007328:Insulin
keywords: Brockmann bodies; diabetes; genomic duplication; insulin gene; islets; teleost fish; tilapia; transgenic fish; xenotransplantation