(Zebra)fishing for nephrogenesis genes

ABSTRACT

Kidney disease is a devastating condition affecting millions of people worldwide, where over 100,000 patients in the United States alone remain waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant. Concomitant with a surge in personalized medicine, single-gene mutations, and polygenic risk alleles have been brought to the forefront as core causes of a spectrum of renal disorders. With the increasing prevalence of kidney disease, it is imperative to make substantial strides in the field of kidney genetics. Nephrons, the core functional units of the kidney, are epithelial tubules that act as gatekeepers of body homeostasis by absorbing and secreting ions, water, and small molecules to filter the blood. Each nephron contains a series of proximal and distal segments with explicit metabolic functions. The embryonic zebrafish provides an ideal platform to systematically dissect the genetic cues governing kidney development. Here, we review the use of zebrafish to discover nephrogenesis genes.

KEYWORDS:

• kidney
• nephrogenesis
• nephron
• renal progenitor
• segmentation
• zebrafish

Acknowledgments

We thank the members of our lab for discussions and insights about this work.

Author Contributions

Writing – original draft preparation, B.E.C., N.E.W., C.M.L., T.K.N., R.A.W.; writing – review and editing, B.E.C., N.E.W., C.M.L., T.K.N., R.A.W.; funding acquisition, N.E.W., C.M.L., R.A.W. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by funds from the University of Notre Dame College of Science (to R.A.W.), teaching assistant funding from the University of Notre Dame Graduate School (to B.E.C., N.E.W., C.M.L., and T.K.N.), a Schmitt Leadership Fellowship (to N.E.W.) and GEM Fellowship (to C.M.L.). We are grateful to Elizabeth and Michael Gallagher for a generous gift to the University of Notre Dame for the support of stem cell research. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or manuscript preparation.