Zebrafish pronephros tubulogenesis and epithelial identity maintenance are reliant on the polarity proteins Prkc iota and zeta.

ABSTRACT: The zebrafish pronephros provides an excellent in vivo system to study the mechanisms of vertebrate nephron development. When and how renal progenitors in the zebrafish embryo undergo tubulogenesis to form nephrons is poorly understood, but is known to involve a mesenchymal to epithelial transition (MET) and the acquisition of polarity. Here, we determined the precise timing of these events in pronephros tubulogenesis. As the ternary polarity complex is an essential regulator of epithelial cell polarity across tissues, we performed gene knockdown studies to assess the roles of the related factors atypical protein kinase C iota and zeta (prkcι, prkcζ). We found that prkcι and prkcζ serve partially redundant functions to establish pronephros tubule epithelium polarity. Further, the loss of p

SUBMITTER: Gerlach GF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4261075 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature