Cell in zebrafish critical to brain assembly, function
Understanding astrocytes is key to understanding autism spectrum
disorder, schizophrenia

Date:
September 8, 2020
Source:
Oregon Health & Science University
Summary:
New research documents the presence of astrocytes in zebrafish, a
milestone that will open new avenues of research into a star-shaped
type of glial cell in the brain that is critical for nearly every
aspect of brain assembly and function.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
New research from Oregon Health & Science University for the first time documents the presence of astrocytes in zebrafish, a milestone that will
open new avenues of research into a star-shaped type of glial cell in
the brain that is critical for nearly every aspect of brain assembly
and function.


==========================================================================
The research was published this week in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

With their transparent bodies, zebrafish larvae provide a unique
opportunity to gaze into the inner workings of the central nervous
system, including the brain, even in living animals. The identification
of astrocytes and the generation of tools to work with them in zebrafish
will enable researchers around the world to open new lines of research
to advance scientific understanding of how astrocytes function.

Astrocytes, it turns out, are the most abundant and mysterious cell type
in the human brain, and OHSU is becoming a hub for research into their
roles in development, brain function and disease.

"There is no neurodegenerative disease that I know of where astrocytes
are not profoundly affected in some way," said senior author Kelly Monk,
Ph.D., professor and co-director of the Vollum Institute at OHSU. "This
gives us a powerful tool to get a handle on what these cells do and how
they do it." Monk and co-author Marc Freeman, Ph.D., credit lead author
Jiakun Chen, Ph.D., a post-doctoral researcher in the Monk and Freeman
labs, with developing a panoply of tools, including a cell-specific
approach using the gene editing tool CRISPR to label and manipulate
astrocyte precursors and incisively study their development and functions.

"He was able to capture the birth of an astrocyte from a stem cell and
its entire development, which has never been visualized before in a
vertebrate animal," Monk said.

Freeman said the discovery will dramatically enhance the study of how
glia regulate brain development and physiology.

"This opens the door to experiments that you can't do in any other
organism," Freeman said. "Zebrafish is the only animal in which you
can now live-image all types of vertebrate glial cells -- astrocytes, microglia, oligodendrocytes and OPCs -- along with any neuron in intact
neural circuits, from the earliest stages of development. Zebrafish is
also the only vertebrate in which you can image the entire brain in live, behaving animals to figure out how it works.

Understanding the role of these cells (astrocytes) in brain development
will be key to understanding devastating neurodevelopmental disorders
like autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia.

"It's a major step forward and should power a lot of exciting work in the coming years." Support for the research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, award R01NS099254, R37NS053538 and R21NS115437.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
Oregon_Health_&_Science_University. Original written by Erik
Robinson. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Jiakun Chen, Kira E. Poskanzer, Marc R. Freeman, Kelly
R. Monk. Live-
imaging of astrocyte morphogenesis and function in zebrafish neural
circuits. Nature Neuroscience, 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41593-020-0703-x ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200908170529.htm

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