Taking a YAP Year: Studying YAP in Optic Nerve Development and Regeneration in Zebrafish — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

Instructions

Student presentations must have a faculty sponsor.

Abstracts must include a title and a description of the research, scholarship, or creative work. The description should be 150-225 words in length and constructed in a format or style appropriate for the presenter’s discipline.

The following points should be addressed within the selected format or style for the abstract:

A clear statement of the problem or question you pursued, or the scholarly goal or creative theme achieved in your work.
A brief comment about the significance or uniqueness of the work.
A clear description of the methods used to achieve the purpose or goals for the work.
A statement of the conclusions, results, outcomes, or recommendations, or if the work is still in progress, the results you expect to report at the event.

Presenter photographs should be head and shoulder shots comparable to passport photos.

Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

Taking a YAP Year: Studying YAP in Optic Nerve Development and Regeneration in Zebrafish

Name: Samantha Ardery
Major: Biology
Hometown: Indianapolis
Faculty Sponsor: Steven Henle
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: SURE
Funding: SURE

Abstract

The zebrafish (Danio rerio) eye closely models the human eye in anatomy and developmental process, however, zebrafish have the unique capability to regenerate their optic nerve after injury. Understanding the molecular and genetic mechanisms that allow zebrafish to develop and regenerate their optic nerve will assist development of therapies to treat optic nerve damage in humans. The Yes-associated protein (YAP) has been previously shown to be involved in the process of eye development and tissue regeneration. Understanding the role of YAP in development can improve the comprehension of the regeneration pathway as well. In order to study the role of YAP in development and regeneration, transgenic zebrafish with a UAS:constitutively active YAP (CA-YAP) gene have been mated with zebrafish with Isl2b:gal4 markers to express CA-YAP and an RFP in the cells of the optic nerve. Confocal microscopy was used to characterize the development of the optic nerve in the presence of CA-YAP. In the future, the effect of CA-YAP expression on optic nerve regeneration will be monitored in adult zebrafish as well. CRISPR will also be used to label the wildtype YAP gene with GFP in order to localize expression and activation of YAP in optic nerve development.