Principles of Zebrafish Nephron Segment Development

Thanh Khoa Nguyen; Madeline Petrikas; Brooke E Chambers; Rebecca A Wingert

doi:10.3390/jdb11010014

Principles of Zebrafish Nephron Segment Development

J Dev Biol. 2023 Mar 18;11(1):14. doi: 10.3390/jdb11010014.

Authors

Thanh Khoa Nguyen¹, Madeline Petrikas¹, Brooke E Chambers¹, Rebecca A Wingert¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Biological Sciences, Center for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, Center for Zebrafish Research, Boler-Parseghian Center for Rare and Neglected Diseases, Warren Center for Drug Discovery, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.

Abstract

Nephrons are the functional units which comprise the kidney. Each nephron contains a number of physiologically unique populations of specialized epithelial cells that are organized into discrete domains known as segments. The principles of nephron segment development have been the subject of many studies in recent years. Understanding the mechanisms of nephrogenesis has enormous potential to expand our knowledge about the basis of congenital anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract (CAKUT), and to contribute to ongoing regenerative medicine efforts aimed at identifying renal repair mechanisms and generating replacement kidney tissue. The study of the zebrafish embryonic kidney, or pronephros, provides many opportunities to identify the genes and signaling pathways that control nephron segment development. Here, we describe recent advances of nephron segment patterning and differentiation in the zebrafish, with a focus on distal segment formation.

Keywords: Kctd15; Tfap2a; Tfap2b; development; distal tubule; nephron; segment; zebrafish.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

This research was funded in part by funds from the University of Notre Dame College of Science to R.A.W., University of Notre Dame Graduate School Teaching Assistant funding to T.K.N., a University of Notre Dame College of Science Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship from the Glynn Family Honors Program awarded to M.P., and Elizabeth and Michael Gallagher by their generous gift to the University of Notre Dame to support stem cell research. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or manuscript preparation.