Authors:

Alice Y Zhou

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About Paper:

Developmental patterning of pigment cells in zebrafish serves as a model for studying how these processes contribute to morphological diversity and provides insight into the mechanisms of human congenital disease. Recent accumulating evidence suggested that bioelectrical signaling plays an important role in pattern formation of those melanocytes. To better understand this process, we utilized the UAS- Gal4 system with the GCaMP6G as a reporter fish line and examined of calcium transients to during embryonic development. This system provided us a real time tracking of calcium activities of pigment cells, such as xanthophores, which are marked by the aox5 gene. Preliminary results revealed visible fluorescence in xanthophore cells located around the eye and dorsal stripe, confirming the localization of GcaMP6G guided by aox5 promoter. Thus, our findings indicate the presence of bioelectric signaling involved in this process. Future work consists of quantitative analysis of fluorescence intensity and time-lapse imaging using the Z- scale to monitor calcium activity throughout embryonic development. Further investigation can be done into the other melanocytes present in zebrafish, such as the melanophores (marked by mitfa) or the iridophores (marked by pnp4a), along with validation our results by for GEVIs (genetically encoded voltage indicators) to directly confirm voltage activity. Keywords: [no keywords provided]

Source:

Purdue University / 2025

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Co-authors:

Alice Y Zhou