纤毛疾病和与之相关的基因

近年来,研究发现纤毛在生成或者形态的缺陷均能导致新生儿遗传性疾病。与其他细胞器不同的是,纤毛这一小的毛发状细胞器能在几乎所有的极性细胞表面上生成,而且功能非常多样化。纤毛在调节脊椎动物的发育和内环境的平衡起着相当重要的作用,而与纤毛相关基因的缺失则与一系列疾病相关,包括:Nephronophthisis、Joubert综合症、Meckel-Gruber综合症和BardetBiedl综合症等。结合最近的研究,本文主要对四类主纤毛相关疾病的基因进行归类总结。     

Evaluation of Zebrafish Kidney Function Using a Fluorescent Clearance Assay

The zebrafish embryo offers a tractable model to study organogenesis and model human genetic disease. Despite its relative simplicity, the zebrafish kidney develops and functions in almost the same way as humans. A major difference in the construction of the human kidney is the presence of millions of nephrons compared to the zebrafish that has only two. However, simplifying such a complex system into basic functional units has aided our understanding of how the kidney develops and operates. In zebrafish, the midline located glomerulus is responsible for the initial blood filtration into two pronephric tubules that diverge to run bilaterally down the embryonic axis before fusing to each other at the cloaca. The pronephric tubules are heavily populated by motile cilia that facilitate the movement of filtrate along the segmented tubule, allowing the exchange of various solutes before finally exiting via the cloaca^2-4. Many genes responsible for CKD, including those related to ciliogenesis, have been studied in zebrafish⁵. However, a major draw back has been the difficulty in evaluating zebrafish kidney function after genetic manipulation. Traditional assays to measure kidney dysfunction in humans have proved non translational to zebrafish, mainly due to their aquatic environment and small size. For example, it is not physically possible to extract blood from embryonic staged fish for analysis of urea and creatinine content, as they are too small. In addition, zebrafish do not produce enough urine for testing on a simple proteinuria ‘dipstick’, which is often performed during initial patient examinations. We describe a fluorescent assay that utilizes the optical transparency of the zebrafish to quantitatively monitor the clearance of a fluorescent dye, over time, from the vasculature and out through the kidney, to give a read out of renal function^1,6-9.