We isolated two zebrafish ankylosis progressive homolog (ankh) genes, ankha and ankhb, from embryonic zebrafish. Amino acid sequences deduced from zebrafish ankh genes are aligned with orthologue proteins from other species, the results showed that they share high percentage of identities (74–82%). Whole-mount in situ hybridization experiments showed that ankha and ankhb are maternal inherited genes which can be detected at 1-cell stage embryos and express in the entire animal pole from 6 hours post-fertilization (hpf) to 12 hpf. At the later stages (from 24 hpf to 3 dpf), expression of ankha was restricted in head region. In contrast, transcripts of ankhb were observed in head, gut, and pharyngeal arches. In conclusion, the present studies not only help us to comparatively analyze ankh genes across species, but also provide useful information about expressions during early embryogenesis that will help in further investigations of functional studies of Ankh in the future.
關聯:
Russian Journal of Developmental Biology 44(6), pp.307-313