Small heat shock proteins are necessary for heart migration and laterality determination in zebrafish.

ABSTRACT: Small heat shock proteins (sHsps) regulate cellular functions not only under stress, but also during normal development, when they are expressed in organ-specific patterns. Here we demonstrate that two small heat shock proteins expressed in embryonic zebrafish heart, hspb7 and hspb12, have roles in the development of left-right asymmetry. In zebrafish, laterality is determined by the motility of cilia in Kupffer's vesicle (KV), where hspb7 is expressed; knockdown of hspb7 causes laterality defects by disrupting the motility of these cilia. In embryos with reduced hspb7, the axonemes of KV cilia have a 9+0 structure, while control embyros have a predominately 9+2 structure. Reduction of either hspb7 or hspb12 alters the expression pattern of genes that propagate the signals that establish l

SUBMITTER: Lahvic JL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3924900 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature