Identification of compounds that rescue otic and myelination defects in the zebrafish adgrg6 (gpr126) mutant
Abstract
Adgrg6 (Gpr126) is an adhesion class G protein-coupled receptor with a conserved role in myelination of the peripheral nervous system. In the zebrafish, mutation of adgrg6 also results in defects in the inner ear: otic tissue fails to down-regulate versican-gene expression and morphogenesis is disrupted. We have designed a whole-animal screen that tests for rescue of both up- and down-regulated gene expression in mutant embryos, together with analysis of weak and strong alleles. From a screen of 3120 structurally diverse compounds, we have identified 68 that reduce versican-b expression in the adgrg6 mutant ear, 41 of which also restore myelin basic protein gene expression in Schwann cells of mutant embryos. Nineteen compounds unable to rescue a strong adgrg6 allele provide candidates for molecules that may interact directly with the Adgrg6 receptor. Our pipeline provides a powerful approach for identifying compounds that modulate GPCR activity, with potential impact for future drug design.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files. Source data files have been provided for Table 1 and Figure1-figure supplement 1, Figure 3, Figure 7 and Figure 7-figure supplements. Links to interactive files are given in the manuscript and in a supplemental file.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (Project grant BB/J003050/1)
- Sarah Baxendale
- Tanya T Whitfield
University of Sheffield (PhD studentship 314420)
- Tanya T Whitfield
Medical Research Council (G0802527)
- Sarah Baxendale
- Celia J Holdsworth
- Leila Abbas
- Tanya T Whitfield
European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (Grant agreement no. 612347)
- Valerie J Gillet
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/R50581X/1)
- Sarah Baxendale
- Anzar Asad
- Giselle R Wiggin
- Tanya T Whitfield
Wellcome (VIP award 084551)
- Leila Abbas
- Tanya T Whitfield
Medical Research Council (G0700091)
- Sarah Baxendale
- Celia J Holdsworth
- Leila Abbas
- Tanya T Whitfield
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (Project grant BB/M01021X/1)
- Sarah Baxendale
- Tanya T Whitfield
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (ALERT14 equipment award BB/M012522/1)
- Sarah Baxendale
- Tanya T Whitfield
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: All animal work was performed under licence from the UK Home Office (P66302E4E), and approved by the University of Sheffield Ethical Review Committee (ASPA Ethical Review Process).
Copyright
© 2019, Diamantopoulou et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 2,774
- views
-
- 342
- downloads
-
- 20
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Further reading
-
- Developmental Biology
The morphogen FGF8 establishes graded positional cues imparting regional cellular responses via modulation of early target genes. The roles of FGF signaling and its effector genes remain poorly characterized in human experimental models mimicking early fetal telencephalic development. We used hiPSC-derived cerebral organoids as an in vitro platform to investigate the effect of FGF8 signaling on neural identity and differentiation. We found that FGF8 treatment increases cellular heterogeneity, leading to distinct telencephalic and mesencephalic-like domains that co-develop in multi-regional organoids. Within telencephalic regions, FGF8 affects the anteroposterior and dorsoventral identity of neural progenitors and the balance between GABAergic and glutamatergic neurons, thus impacting spontaneous neuronal network activity. Moreover, FGF8 efficiently modulates key regulators responsible for several human neurodevelopmental disorders. Overall, our results show that FGF8 signaling is directly involved in both regional patterning and cellular diversity in human cerebral organoids and in modulating genes associated with normal and pathological neural development.
-
- Developmental Biology
Wnt signaling plays crucial roles in embryonic patterning including the regulation of convergent extension (CE) during gastrulation, the establishment of the dorsal axis, and later, craniofacial morphogenesis. Further, Wnt signaling is a crucial regulator of craniofacial morphogenesis. The adapter proteins Dact1 and Dact2 modulate the Wnt signaling pathway through binding to Disheveled. However, the distinct relative functions of Dact1 and Dact2 during embryogenesis remain unclear. We found that dact1 and dact2 genes have dynamic spatiotemporal expression domains that are reciprocal to one another suggesting distinct functions during zebrafish embryogenesis. Both dact1 and dact2 contribute to axis extension, with compound mutants exhibiting a similar CE defect and craniofacial phenotype to the wnt11f2 mutant. Utilizing single-cell RNAseq and an established noncanonical Wnt pathway mutant with a shortened axis (gpc4), we identified dact1/2-specific roles during early development. Comparative whole transcriptome analysis between wildtype and gpc4 and wildtype and dact1/2 compound mutants revealed a novel role for dact1/2 in regulating the mRNA expression of the classical calpain capn8. Overexpression of capn8 phenocopies dact1/2 craniofacial dysmorphology. These results identify a previously unappreciated role of capn8 and calcium-dependent proteolysis during embryogenesis. Taken together, our findings highlight the distinct and overlapping roles of dact1 and dact2 in embryonic craniofacial development, providing new insights into the multifaceted regulation of Wnt signaling.