Project description:We employed transcriptomics methods to examine RNAs from the nuclear and cytosolic fractions from zebrafish embryos at different stages of development. The RNA-seq revealed spatial and temporal regulation of lncRNA expression during zebrafish development.
Project description:During early vertebrate development, a large number of noncoding RNAs are maternally inherited or expressed upon activation of zygotic transcription. The exact identity, expression levels, and function during early vertebrate development for most of these noncoding RNAs remains largely unknown. miRNAs (microRNAs) and piRNAs (piwi-interacting RNAs) are two classes of small non-coding RNAs that play important roles in gene regulation during early embryonic development. Here, we utilized Illumina next generation sequencing technology to determine temporal expression patterns for both miRNAs and piRNAs during four distinct stages of early vertebrate development using zebrafish as a model system. For miRNAs, the expression patterns for 192 known miRNAs and 12 novel miRNAs within 123 different miRNA families were determined. Significant sequence variation was observed at the 5' and 3' ends of miRNAs with a large number of extra nucleotides added in a non-template directed manner. We also identified a large and diverse set of piRNAs expressed during early development, far beyond that expected if piRNA expression is restricted to germ cells. Our analyses represent the deepest investigation to date of small RNA expression during early vertebrate development and suggest important novel functions for small RNAs during embryogenesis. Identify the expression of small RNAs in zebrafish embryos of four different developmental stages using high through-put sequencing
Project description:During early vertebrate development, a large number of noncoding RNAs are maternally inherited or expressed upon activation of zygotic transcription. The exact identity, expression levels, and function during early vertebrate development for most of these noncoding RNAs remains largely unknown. miRNAs (microRNAs) and piRNAs (piwi-interacting RNAs) are two classes of small non-coding RNAs that play important roles in gene regulation during early embryonic development. Here, we utilized Illumina next generation sequencing technology to determine temporal expression patterns for both miRNAs and piRNAs during four distinct stages of early vertebrate development using zebrafish as a model system. For miRNAs, the expression patterns for 192 known miRNAs and 12 novel miRNAs within 123 different miRNA families were determined. Significant sequence variation was observed at the 5' and 3' ends of miRNAs with a large number of extra nucleotides added in a non-template directed manner. We also identified a large and diverse set of piRNAs expressed during early development, far beyond that expected if piRNA expression is restricted to germ cells. Our analyses represent the deepest investigation to date of small RNA expression during early vertebrate development and suggest important novel functions for small RNAs during embryogenesis.
Project description:The asymmetric localization of maternal biomolecules is critical for body plan development. One of the most popular model organisms for early embryogenesis studies is Xenopus laevis but there is a lack of information in other animal species. Here, we compare the early development of two amphibian species – the frog X. laevis and the axolotl Ambystoma mexicanum. This study aimed to identify asymmetrically localized RNAs along the animal-vegetal axis during the early development of A. mexicanum. For that purpose, we performed spatial transcriptome-wide analysis, which revealed dynamic changes along the animal-vegetal axis classified into the following categories: relocalization, de novo synthesis and degradation. Surprisingly, our results showed that many of the vegetally localized genes, which are important for germ cell development, are degraded during early development. Furthermore, we assessed the motif presence in UTRs of degraded mRNAs and revealed the enrichment of several motifs in RNAs of germ cell markers. Our results suggest novel reorganization of the transcriptome during embryogenesis of A. mexicanum to converge to the similar developmental pattern as the X. laevis.
Project description:Gene expression profiling of zebrafish early eye development on 3 to 5 days post fertilization (dpf) Gene expression on 3 to 5 dpf eyes were compared. Each sample contains three replicates.
Project description:Microscale small RNA high-throughput sequencing was used to study small RNA distribution in early zebrafish PGCs (primordial germ cells). We find that early zebrafish PGCs have large quantities of piRNAs and small quantities of miRNAs. Among the miRNAs detected, miR-430 accounted for the majority which has been proved to play diverse roles in zebrafish development. In addition, miR-92a-3p and miR-26a-5p have high expression and previous studies show that these two miRNAs can influence cell proliferation in cancer cells. More experiments should be performed in the future to explore whether miR-92a-3p and miR-26a-5p can influence the number of zebrafish PGCs.