Role of Aire in the early development of zebrafish

• Project/Area Number: 25670231
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Immunology
• Research Institution: The University of Tokushima
• Principal Investigator: MATSUMOTO Mitsuru 徳島大学, 疾患酵素学研究センター, 教授 (60221595)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 2014)
• Budget Amount: ¥3,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥900,000); Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,950,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥450,000); Fiscal Year 2013: ¥1,950,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥450,000)
• Keywords: Aire / zebrafish / 自己免疫 / TALEN / 自己寛容 / AIRE遺伝子 / 形態形成

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We have been trying to identify the target genes of Aire by investigating the role of Aire in early development of zebrafish. Our initial trial to achieve this using knockdown method did not produce stable phenotypes in zebrafish. We therefore generated zebrafish lacking z-Aire by the use of TALEN method. We targeted Exon 2 of z-Aire, and established mutant zebrafish by injecting RNA that targets the Exon 2 of z-Aire. We are currently examining the phenotypes of mutant zebrafish, and are planning to identify the target genes of Aire based on studying the phenotypes of zebrafish lacking z-Aire.