The 8th Annual

NC State University

Undergraduate Summer Research Symposium

 

College of Veterinary Medicine Undergraduate Summer Research Program

abstracts


Abstracts are listed in alphabetical order by the last name of the corresponding author.

 

 

 

 

Student Author(s): 

McDowell, Zachary T.

Home Institution:

NCSU 

Program:

College of Veterinary Medicine Undergraduate Summer Research Program

College:

College of Veterinary Medicine

Department(s):

Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine Molecular Biomedical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine

Center for Comparative Medicine and Translational Research

Research Mentor(s): 

Samuel L. Jones/Clinical Sciences and Center for Comparative Medicine and Translational Research

Jeffrey A. Yoder/Molecular Biomedical Sciences and Center for Comparative Medicine and Translational Research

Laura E. Neuder/Clinical Sciences

Title of Presentation:

MARCKS Protein is Critically Important during Early Development of Zebrafish (Danio rerio)

 

 
 

 

Myristoylated Alanine Rich C-Kinase Substrate (MARCKS) protein is an actin binding protein that is critical during embryonic development in mice and frogs, specifically during neurodevelopment.  MARCKS deficiencies in mice are embryonic lethal and MARCKS deficient mice that survive suffer from severe disease and die shortly after birth.  MARCKS is a conserved protein expressed among vertebrate species, including humans, mice, frogs and zebrafish (Danio rerio).  In this study, we sought to determine the phenotype of MARCKS deficient zebrafish during early development from fertilization to 96 hours post fertilization (hpf).  Zebrafish express two orthologs of MARCKS; MARCKS (Genbank number NM_001015060) and predicted MARCKS (Genbank number NM_001024404).  Therefore, we characterized the MARCKS mRNA expression of both MARCKS and predicted MARCKS from 0 to 120 hpf, and observed expression of both MARCKS orthologs at every time point evaluated.  We utilized anti-sense morpholino oligonucleotides to disrupt MARCKS expression to test the hypothesis that MARCKS plays a critical role during early development of zebrafish larvae.  Zebrafish embryos were injected with a translation blocking or splice blocking morpholino targeting zebrafish MARCKS at the 1-4 cell stage.  Phenotypic observations were taken at 24, 48, 72 and 96 hpf.  MARCKS translation and splice blocking morpholino injected larvae had a higher mortality rate than control morpholino injected or non-injected wild type larvae.  A higher rate of embryonic deformities was also observed in the MARCKS translation and splice blocking morpholino injected larvae compared to the control and wild type larvae.  The deformities observed in the MARCKS translation and splice blocking injected larvae were either “mild” a slight curve of the tail; “moderate” an obvious curve or twist in the tail; or “severe” a cropped or absent tail.  Taken together, our data suggest that MARCKS is critically important in zebrafish development and that MARCKS may be involved in developmental processes besides neurodevelopment.  

 

 

 






 

 

  

 

 

 

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