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Saving zebrafish mutants
Author(s) -
Ekker Marc
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
bioessays
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.175
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1521-1878
pISSN - 0265-9247
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1521-1878(199902)21:2<94::aid-bies2>3.0.co;2-j
Subject(s) - zebrafish , mutant , biology , computational biology , microbiology and biotechnology , genetics , gene
At present, the zebrafish Danio rerio is the only verteberate species for which a large‐scale mutagenesis effort to identify developmental genes has been reported. Several laboratories are now intensely pursuing the molecular characterization of the genes affected by these mutations. One important criterion for the identity of the mutated gene is the rescue of the mutant phenotype by a wild‐type (wt) copy of the gene. Until recently, most rescue attempts were carried out by injecting wt messenger RNA (mRNA) into fertilized eggs. A report by Yan and collaborators (1) shows the partial rescue of floatinghead mutants (2) by injection of genomic fragments cloned in either bacterial artificial chromosomes or bacteriophage λ vectors. Combined with other ongoing efforts to characterize the zebrafish genome, this approach of mutant rescue opens interesting avenues for a systematic functional analysis of vertebrate genes. BioEssays 1999;21:94–98. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.