Abstract
The zebrafish no tail gene (ntl) is indispensable for the formation of the notochord and the tail structure. In a wild-type zebrafish population, we occasionally observed adult zebrafish with a narrow or no tailfin. This led us to examine the hypothesis that the activity of ntl was somehow genetically unstable. Here we present two findings regarding the gene. First, approximately 3% of ntl transcripts were aberrant; most of them carried deletions at various positions. Second, free, DNA double-stranded ends (DSEs) were formed at an AT dinucleotide repeat in ntl. DSEs were also generated in another zebrafish gene, noggin2 (nog2). DSEs in ntl and nog2 had common characteristics, which suggested that the AT repeats in these genes elicited DSEs by blocking progression of the replication.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Dr. H. Siomi for providing facilities throughout the course of this study; F. Unemi, T. Nagami and R. Makimoto for fish maintenance; H. Takeda and M. Seiki-Furutani for the ntl mutants; and the members of H. Siomi lab for technical assistance and advice.
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Yamakoshi, K., Shishido, Y. & Shimoda, N. Generation of Aberrant Transcripts of and Free DNA Ends in Zebrafish no tail Gene. Mar Biotechnol 7, 163–172 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10126-004-3500-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10126-004-3500-8