IDENTIFICATION OF IRF6 DOWNSTREAM TARGET GENES IN ZEBRAFISH

Abstract

Gastrulation involves a series of coordinated cell movements to organize the germ layers and establish the major body axes of the embryo. During the process of studying interferon regulatory factor 6 (IRF6) which is known to be involved in syndromic oral clefting, we found out a drastic and prominent knockdown phenotype leading by Mopholino targeting at the splice junction of exon 3 and intron 3 of irf6 pre-mRNA (E3I3) in zebrafish that strongly suggests a critical role of Irf6 in proper gastrulation and early embryogenesis. In this study, we profiled the transcriptome of embryos lack of functional Irf6 leading by the injection of E3I3 using microarray. We identified and characterized cyr61 and mapkapk3 as target genes of Irf6 at gastrulation stage in zebrafish. These findings will provide novel insights into how IRF6 function in vertebrate embryogenesis and also contribute new knowledge into understanding gastrulation process.