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Updated: Oct 28, 2025
Transplantation of GFP-expressing Blastomeres for Live Imaging of Retinal and Brain Development in Chimeric Zebrafish Embryos
Published on: July 19, 2010
Crk adaptor proteins are necessary for the development of the zebrafish retina
Helaina R Stergas1, Zoë Kalbag1, Riley M St Clair1
1Department of Biology, The University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, USA.
Background:
The development of the central nervous system (CNS) requires critical cell signaling molecules to coordinate cell proliferation and migration in order to structure the adult tissue. Chicken tumor virus #10 Regulator of Kinase (CRK) and CRK-like (CRKL) are adaptor proteins with pre-metazoan ancestry and are known to be required for patterning laminated structures downstream of Reelin (RELN), such as the cerebral cortex, cerebellum, and hippocampus. CRK and CRKL also play crucial roles in a variety of other growth factor and extracellular matrix signaling cascades. The neuronal retina is another highly laminated structure within the CNS that is dependent on migration for proper development, but the cell signaling mechanisms behind neuronal positioning in the retina are only partly understood.
Results:
We find that crk and crkl have largely overlapping expression within the developing zebrafish nervous system. We find that their disruption results in smaller eye size and loss of retinal lamination.
Conclusions:
Our data indicate that Crk adaptors are critical for proper development of the zebrafish neural retina in a crk/crkl dose-dependent manner.
