J. Liu, D. W.-C. Li, S.-J. Liu, Y. Liu, L. Wang, T.-T. Li, M. Yi, L. Li, Z.-X. Huang, W.-F. Hu, W.-B. Liu, C. Zhang, M. Tao, W. Duan, S.-S. Hui, L. Nie, M.-X. Deng, X.-W. Zhang and X.-H. Hu Pages 1376 - 1384 ( 9 )
Protein serine/threonine phosphatase-2A (PP-2A) is one of the key enzymes responsible for dephosphorylation in vertebrates. PP-2A-mediated dephosphorylation participates in many different biological processes including cell proliferation, differentiation, transformation, apoptosis, autophage and senescence. However, whether PP-2A directly controls animal development remains to be explored. Here, we present direct evidence to show that PP-2A displays important functions in regulating eye development of vertebrates. Using goldfish as a model system, we have demonstrated the following novel information. First, inhibition of PP-2A activity leads to significant death of the treated embryos, which is derived from blastomere apoptosis associated with enhanced phosphorylation of Bcl-XL at Ser-62, and the survived embryos displayed severe phenotype in the eye. Second, knockdown of PP-2A with morpholino oligomers leads to significant death of the injected embryos. The survived embryos from PP-2A knockdown displayed clear retardation in lens differentiation. Finally, overexpression of each catalytic subunit of PP-2A also causes death of majority of the injected embryos and leads to absence of goldfish eye lens or severely disturbed differentiation. Together, our results provide direct evidence that protein phosphatase-2A is important for normal eye development in goldfish.
Apoptosis, differentiation, eye development, lens, PP-2A, PP-2Acα/β, protein phosphatases, retina.
, Key Laboratory of Protein Chemistry and Development Biology of National Education Department, College of Life Science, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan Province 410081, China; Or Dr. David W. Li, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, College of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska 68198-5540, USA.