Genetic study of hematopoiesis development by two zebrafish mutants: Ugly duckling and tc-244

Hematopoiesis is defined as a biological process from which major lineages of blood cells are generated and subsequently mature into functionally active cells. Although it is widely known that vertebrate hematopoiesis has two phases: a primitive phase is followed by the other definitive phase, the underlying molecular mechanism governing these two phases is not fully understood. In this study, two zebrafish mutants ugly duckling (udu) and tc-244 were used to study the development of primitive and definitive hematopoiesis. Characterization and transplantation analysis of udu mutant suggests that the udu gene is essential for the primitive hematopoietic cell proliferation and differentiation. In contrast, tc-244 mutant was found to be normal in primitive hematopoiesis but had severe defects in definitive hematopoiesis. Positional cloning revealed that the tc-244 mutant phenotype was caused by a point mutation in another novel zebrafish gene. Thus, tc-244 is identified as an important regulator for definitive hematopoiesis.

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• DU LINSEN

• primitive hematopoiesis, definitive hematopoiesis, zebrafish, positional cloning, forward genetics, udu