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Robust and local positional information within a fin ray directs fin length during zebrafish regeneration
Author(s) -
Shibata Eri,
Liu Zhengcheng,
Kawasaki Toshihiro,
Sakai Noriyuki,
Kawakami Atsushi
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
development, growth and differentiation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.864
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1440-169X
pISSN - 0012-1592
DOI - 10.1111/dgd.12558
Subject(s) - fin , fish fin , biology , zebrafish , anatomy , dorsal fin , transplantation , position (finance) , fish <actinopterygii> , dorsum , genetics , materials science , gene , medicine , finance , fishery , economics , composite material
It has been proposed that cells are regulated to form specific morphologies and sizes according to positional information. However, the entity and nature of positional information have not been fully understood yet. The zebrafish caudal fin has a characteristic V‐shape; dorsal and ventral fin rays are longer than the central ones. This fin shape regenerates irrespective of the sites or shape of fin amputation. It is thought that reformation of tissue occurs according to positional information. In this study, we developed a novel transplantation procedure for grafting a whole fin ray to an ectopic position and examined whether the information that specifies fin length exists within each fin ray. Intriguingly, when long and short fin rays were swapped, they regenerated to form longer or shorter fin rays than the adjacent host fin rays, respectively. Further, the abnormal fin ray lengths were maintained for a long time, more than 5 months, and after further re‐amputation. In contrast to intra‐fin grafting, when fin ray grafting was performed between fish, cells in the grafts disappeared due to immune rejection, and the grafted fin rays adapted to the host position to form a normal fin. Together, our data suggest that the information that directs fin length does exist in cells within a single fin ray and that it has a robust property—it is stable for a long time and is hard to rewrite. Our study highlighted a novel positional information mechanism for directing regenerating fin length.