Abstract
Age-related systemic environments influence neurogenesis and organ regeneration of heterochronic parabiotic partners; however, the difficulty of manipulating small embryos prevents the effects of aged systemic environments on primitive organs at the developmental stage from being analysed. Here, we describe a novel transplantation system to support whole living embryos/larvae as grafts in immunodeficient zebrafish by the intrusion of host blood vessels into the grafts, allowing bodies similar to those of heterochronic parabiosis to be generated by subcutaneous grafting. Although grafted embryos/larvae formed most organs, not all organogenesis was supported equally; although the brain, eyes and the intestine usually developed, the liver, testes and heart developed insufficiently or even occasionally disappeared. Removal of host germ cells stimulated testis development in grafted embryos. These results indicate that primitive testes are susceptible to the systemic environments that originated from the germ cells of aged hosts and imply that the primitive liver and heart are similar. Upon applying this method to embryonic lethal mutants, various types of organs, including testes that developed in germ-cell-removed recipients, and viable offspring were obtained from the mutants. This unique transplantation system will lead to new insights into the age-related systemic environments that are crucial for organogenesis in vertebrates.
Highlights
Parabiotic pairings, which share a circulatory system by surgical connections between two entire animals, show unique phenomena of rescuing individuals that were lethally damaged by radiation[1] and affecting organ growth[2,3]
Primitive organs such as the liver, heart and testes in the grafted embryos occasionally disappeared 2 months after transplantation, germ cell-removed hosts recovered the support for testis development in grafted embryos, giving rise to the possibility that age-related systemic environments influence the development of primitive organs such as the liver, heart and testis in zebrafish
When fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)-labelled dextran solution was injected into recipient hearts, we confirmed the arrival of FITC-labelled dextran into grafted embryos (Fig. 2)
Summary
Parabiotic pairings, which share a circulatory system by surgical connections between two entire animals, show unique phenomena of rescuing individuals that were lethally damaged by radiation[1] and affecting organ growth[2,3]. The results show that transplantation of a living whole embryo or larva into rag[1] mutant recipients can support development, including of embryonic lethal mutants, by the intrusion of host blood vessels into the grafts. Primitive organs such as the liver, heart and testes in the grafted embryos occasionally disappeared 2 months after transplantation, germ cell-removed hosts recovered the support for testis development in grafted embryos, giving rise to the possibility that age-related systemic environments influence the development of primitive organs such as the liver, heart and testis in zebrafish
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