Journal Article
Stable transgenesis in Astyanax mexicanus using the Tol2 transposase system
Stahl, B.A., Peuß, R., McDole, B., Kenzior, A., Jaggard, J.B., Gaudenz, K., Krishnan, J., McGaugh, S.E., Duboue, E.R., Keene, A.C and Rohner, N.
Record Number:
4212
Year:
2019
Journal:
bioRxiv preprint first posted online Jan. 30, 2019
Abstract:
Astyanax mexicanus is a well-established and widely used fish model system for
evolutionary and developmental biology research. These fish exist as surface forms that
inhabit rivers and 30 different populations of cavefish. The establishment of A. mexicanus
as an emergent model organism for understanding the evolutionary basis of development
and behavior has been accelerated by an increasing availability of genomic approaches
to identify genotype-phenotype associations. Despite important progress in the
deployment of new technologies, deep mechanistic insights into A. mexicanus evolution
and development have been limited by a lack of transgenic lines commonly used in
genetic model systems. Here, we expand the toolkit of transgenesis by characterizing two
novel stable transgenic lines that were generated using the highly efficient Tol2 system,
commonly used to generate transgenic zebrafish. A stable transgenic line consisting of
the zebrafish ubiquitin promoter fused to eGFP expressed eGFP ubiquitously throughout
development in a surface population of Astyanax. To define specific cell-types, we
injected fish with a Cntnap2-mCherry construct that labels lateral line mechanosensory
neurons in zebrafish. Strikingly, both constructs appear to label the predicted cell types,
suggesting many genetic tools and defined promoter regions in zebrafish are directly
transferrable to cavefish. The lines provide proof-of-principle for the application of Tol2
transgenic technology in A. mexicanus. Expansion on these initial transgenic lines will
provide a platform to address broadly important problems in the quest to bridge the
genotype to phenotype gap.
Times Cited:
1
Relevent Species: