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The zebrafish dorsal axis is apparent at the four-cell stage

Nature volume 438, pages 1030–1035 (2005)Cite this article

A Corrigendum to this article was published on 12 December 2012

This article has been updated

Abstract

A central question in the development of multicellular organisms pertains to the timing and mechanisms of specification of the embryonic axes. In many organisms, specification of the dorsoventral axis requires signalling by proteins of the Transforming growth factor-β and Wnt families1,2,3. Here we show that maternal transcripts of the zebrafish Nodal-related morphogen, Squint (Sqt), can localize to two blastomeres at the four-cell stage and predict the dorsal axis. Removal of cells containing sqt transcripts from four-to-eight-cell embryos or injection of antisense morpholino oligonucleotides targeting sqt into oocytes can cause a loss of dorsal structures. Localization of sqt transcripts is independent of maternal Wnt pathway function and requires a highly conserved sequence in the 3′ untranslated region. Thus, the dorsoventral axis is apparent by early cleavage stages and may require the maternally encoded morphogen Sqt and its associated factors. Because the 3′ untranslated region of the human nodal gene can also localize exogenous sequences to dorsal cells, this mechanism may be evolutionarily conserved.

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Figure 1: Sqt RNA localizes in early embryos.
Figure 2: The sqt 3′ UTR is necessary and sufficient for dorsal localization.
Figure 3: Removal of cells with sqt RNA from embryos or injection of sqt morpholinos into oocytes leads to loss of dorsal structures.
Figure 4: Localization and function of sqt RNA is independent of β-catenin2 function.

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Change history

  • 12 December 2012

    Nature 438, 1030–1035 (2005); doi:10.1038/nature04184 In Fig. 3p and q and Supplementary Table 3 of this Letter, the data for sqt MO2 and sqt MO3 were inadvertently mislabelled and should be swapped. The text on page 1033 that describes Fig. 3p and q should therefore read ‘sqt MO2’ not ‘sqt MO3’ on lines 4 and 13 of the second full paragraph of the left column.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Balasubramanian, R. Dosch, R. Dunn, S. Jesuthasan, E. Raz, S. Roy, A. Schier, and members of the Sampath laboratory for discussions and suggestions; S. Koshida, E. Yamaha and H. Takeda for embryo operation techniques; A. Chang and the Qian Hu fish farm for cyprinids; H. Ngoc Bao Quach for technical assistance; M. Hidayat for sequencing; and J. Bradner, C. Hu and C. Goh and the TLL fish facility for fish care. This work was supported by NIH grants (E.W.) and by TLL, Singapore (K.S.).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vertebrate Development Group, Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, 1 Research Link, 117604, Singapore

    Aniket V. Gore, Albert Cheong, Patrick C. Gilligan & Karuna Sampath

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 117543, Singapore

    Aniket V. Gore & Karuna Sampath

  3. Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, 19104, Philadelphia, USA

    Shingo Maegawa & Eric S. Weinberg

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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Karuna Sampath.

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Competing interests

The cyprinid sqt sequences have been deposited in GenBank (accession numbers DQ080241, DQ080242 and DQ080243). Reprints and permissions information is available at npg.nature.com/reprintsandpermissions. The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Figure 1

Real-Time PCR analysis of sqt transcripts (a) and ef1-α (b) at various stages of development. (PDF 354 kb)

Supplementary Figure 2

Colocalization of β-catenin with β-Gal human nodal 3’UTR. (PDF 76 kb)

Supplementary Table 1

Percentage embryos expressing localized sqt through cleavage, blastula and early gastrula stages. (DOC 20 kb)

Supplementary Table 2

Marker gene expression in operated embryos. (DOC 24 kb)

Supplementary Table 3

Marker gene expression in morpholino injected oocytes or fertilized embryos (DOC 28 kb)

Supplementary Video 1

Dynamic localization of fluorescent sqt RNA in zebrafish embryos at early cleavage stages. (MOV 2570 kb)

Supplementary Video 2

Dynamic localization of fluorescent sqt RNA in zebrafish embryos at early cleavage stages. (AVI 517 kb)

Supplementary Video 3

Uniform distribution of fluorescent lacZ RNA with the β-globin 3’ UTR. (MOV 976 kb)

Supplementary Video 4

Localization of fluorescent sqt RNA is inhibited by the microtubule poison, nocodazole. (MOV 3388 kb)

Supplementary Video 5

The 3’UTR of sqt RNA is required for localization. The embryo was injected with sqt RNA lacking its 3’UTR. (AVI 3076 kb)

Supplementary Video 6

Exogenous 3’UTRs do not localize sqt RNA. The embryo was injected with labelled sqt coding region RNA fused with the β-globin 3’UTR. (MOV 1176 kb)

Supplementary Video 7

Fluorescent lacZ RNA fused to sqt 3’UTR is localized by early cleavage stages. (MOV 3337 kb)

Supplementary Video 8

Fluorescent lacZ RNA fused to sqt 3’UTR is localized by early cleavage stages. (MOV 2176 kb)

Supplementary Video 9

Fluorescent sqt RNA with the first 50 nucleotides of its 3’UTR is localized by the 4-cell stage (MOV 2363 kb)

Supplementary Video 10

Fluorescent sqt RNA with the first 50 nucleotides of its 3’UTR is localized by the 4-cell stage. (MOV 3411 kb)

Supplementary Video 11

Fluorescent lacZ RNA with the human nodal 3’UTR is localized by the 4-cell stage. (MOV 2774 kb)

Supplementary Video 12

Fluorescent lacZ RNA with the human nodal 3’UTR is localized by the 4-cell stage. Lateral view shown. (AVI 656 kb)

Supplementary Legends

Text to accompany the above Supplementary Figures and Supplementary videos. (DOC 24 kb)

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Gore, A., Maegawa, S., Cheong, A. et al. The zebrafish dorsal axis is apparent at the four-cell stage. Nature 438, 1030–1035 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04184

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