| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,700,000)
Fiscal Year 2000: ¥1,600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,600,000)
Fiscal Year 1999: ¥2,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,100,000)
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| Research Abstract |
Left-right asymmetry in heart and intestinal organs of vertebrates is produced in the process of their development. We investigated that shh, Pitx2 and retinoic acid are involved in this process, and that they are responsible for the left handedness. In particular, we cloned Pitx2 gene from zebrafish and analyzed its expression pattern, function, gene regulations, and interaction with retinoic acid (Tsukui et al., 1999).
On the other hand, we cloned several members of T-box gene family, which are largely involved in organ for mation and patterning, in order to examine their functions on left-right asymmetry. We analyzed their expression patterns in zebrafish embryo (Yonei-Tamura et al., 1999 ; Tamura et al., 1999), and confirmed an important role of Tbx5/4 in chick embryo (Rodriguez-Esteban et al., 1999).
We also started a project on flounder and left-right asymmetry. We examined and evaluated the visual chiasma as a significant phenotype of left-right asymmetry, and used as a guidepost of left-right asymmetry. We also cloned several PCR fragments of key genes on left-right asymmetry, includeing Pitx2, fgf8, Noda11, and msx (2) from the flounder.
The above results were published in a review article (Tamura et al., 1999).
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