2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Construction of photosynthetic zebrafish

Research Project

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Project/Area Number	20K21273
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Review Section	Medium-sized Section 38:Agricultural chemistry and related fields
Research Institution	Mie University
Principal Investigator	Shimada Yasuhito 三重大学, 医学系研究科, 講師 (40378427)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	今村博臣京都大学, 生命科学研究科, 准教授 (20422545) 中山寛子三重大学, 地域イノベーション学研究科, 研究員 (20831085) 加藤浩三重大学, 地域イノベーション推進機構, 助教 (30378327)
Project Period (FY)	2020-07-30 – 2022-03-31
Keywords	ゼブラフィッシュ / 光合成
Outline of Final Research Achievements	One species of salamander takes in neighboring algae at the time of fertilization of eggs, and the symbiotic algae provide energy to the salamander itself through photosynthesis after growth. We investigated whether it is possible to do the same thing artificially using fertilized zebrafish eggs. First, we constructed a genetically modified zebrafish that constantly expresses the FRET protein ATeam, which changes its fluorescence in response to the amount of intracellular ATP. Intravascular transplantation of specific cyanobacteria into the ATeam zebrafish resulted in a detectable increase in the amount of ATP in the body for one week. As a further long-term symbiosis model, cyanobacteria were successfully established as intestinal microflora.
Free Research Field	生物工学
Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements	動物体内における光合成の成立は、前述のサンショウウオ以外これまで報告がなく、また人工的に行われたものもない。全く新しいチャレンジング（挑戦的）な研究である。将来的な応用展開としては、例えば腸内細菌としてのシアノバクテリアの共生による動物個体への栄養補給、特に飢餓・低栄養環境下での栄養補給や、魚類や哺乳類動物の養殖のサポートなどを想定している。