Abstract
While zebrafish have for some time been regarded as a powerful model organism with which to study early events in hematopoiesis, recent evidence suggests that it also ideal for unraveling the molecular requirements for T cell development in the thymus. Like mammals, zebrafish possess an adaptive immune system, comprising B lymphocytes as well as both the γδ and αβ lineages of T cells, which develop in the thymus. Moreover, the molecular processes underlying T cell development in zebrafish appear to be remarkably conserved. Thus, findings in the zebrafish model will be of high relevance to the equivalent processes in mammals. Finally, molecular processes can be interrogated in zebrafish far more rapidly than is possible in mammals because the zebrafish possesses many unique advantages. These unique attributes, and the methods by which they can be exploited to investigate the role of novel genes in T cell development, are described here.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the support and help from Dr. Jennifer Rhodes, Allison Ulrich and Alison N. Bilbee for the zebrafish work. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the following core facilities of the Fox Chase Cancer Center: Flow Cytometry, DNA Sequencing, Imaging and Laboratory Animal/Zebrafish. This work was supported by NIH grants AI081814, AI073920, NIH core grant P01CA06927, Center grant P30-DK-50306. Y.Z. is a W.J. Avery Postdoctoral Fellow of Fox Chase Cancer Center.
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Zhang, Y., Wiest, D.L. (2016). Using the Zebrafish Model to Study T Cell Development. In: Bosselut, R., S. Vacchio, M. (eds) T-Cell Development. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1323. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2809-5_22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2809-5_22
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