A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. 2015. / Prdm1/Blimp1 is a transcription factor whose mechanism of action is mainly repression; however it has been identified as an activator in some cases. As a transcriptional repressor, it plays multiple roles during embryonic development, including neural crest specification. Prdm1 acts by repressing large sets of genes via sequence specific recruitment of co-repressors, many of which are epigenetic modifiers. Neural crest is a transient, migrating cell population that gives rise to a number of diverse cell lineages that form important structures in the vertebrate embryo. Examples of these include peripheral nervous system, melanocytes and cranial cartilage. Prdm1 is expressed during neural crest specification in Xenopus, zebrafish and lamprey. The expression of Prdm1 had not yet been investigated in the neural crest during chick embryonic development. The mechanism of Prdm1 action or the nature of possible binding partners that mediate its effects in the neural crest had not yet been addressed. Prdm1 binding partners are known to play important roles during embryonic development, yet in many cases no spatiotemporal expression analysis during early vertebrate development has been performed. Single and double in situ hybridization for Prdm1 and all the binding partners was performed to determine localization of mRNA during early stages of chick embryonic development. We report the expression patterns of Prdm1 and seven of its known or putative binding partners (Hdac1, Hdac2, Tle1, Tle3, G9a, Prmt5 and Lsd1) during early stages (HH4-HH10) of chicken embryogenesis. Prdm1 expression was observed in the neural plate border and pre-migratory neural crest during chick development. Six Prdm1 binding partners (except Tle1) are co- expressed with Prdm1 in the prospective neural plate border at HH4-HH6, and all seven show strong and specific expression in the neural plate border at HH7-HH8, suggesting all of them co-operate with Prdm1 during neural crest development in chick embryos. Future work will focus on protein interaction studies in order to directly demonstrate the association between Prdm1 and the binding partners it co-localizes with.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/18522 |
| Date | 26 January 2015 |
| Creators | Zwane, Thembekile Buhle Christina |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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