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Genomics

Netting zebrafish genes

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 3, page 407 (2002)Cite this article

The ambitious goal of this screen — the logistics of which have been previously published — is to identify 450–500 retrovirally mutated genes that cause visible embryonic phenotypes. (From the results of previous chemical mutagenesis screens, they estimate that this number of mutations should hit ∼20% of the genes that can be mutated to give a visible phenotype.) More than 500 insertional mutants have been produced so far, and Golling et al. now report the first 75 genes to be isolated from the screen. Thanks to the retroviral tags, most were fished out in as little as two weeks.

What can we infer from this list of mutant embryos and genes? The range of phenotypes resembles those observed in the Boston and Tübingen ENU mutagenesis screens, with many developmental defects occurring in specific tissues or structures. Mutants with more general defects discarded in the previous screens were kept by Golling et al. to generate an unbiased view of the 'genetic construction kit' of a vertebrate embryo.

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References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Golling, G. et al. Insertional mutagenesis in zebrafish rapidly identifies the genes essential for early vertebrate development. Nature Genet. 13 May 2002 (10.1038/ng896)

FURTHER READING

  1. Patton, E. E. & Zon, L. I. The art and design of genetic screens: zebrafish. Nature Rev. Genet. 2, 956–966 (2001)

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  1. Associate Editor, Nature Genetics,

    Alan Packer

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  1. Alan Packer
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Packer, A. Netting zebrafish genes. Nat Rev Genet 3, 407 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg824

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