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Submitted on November 21, 2002
Accepted on January 29, 2003
1 Department of Medicine, Cedars-Sinai Research Institute, University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California 90048, Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, Hans-Spemann-Laboratorium, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Immunbiologie Stuebeweg 51, D-79108 Freiburg, Germany
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: Melmed{at}CSMC.edu.
We characterized zebrafish pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) gene promoter, and sequence analysis revealed that the promoter contains regulatory elements conserved among vertebrate species. To monitor the ontogeny of the pituitary POMC lineage in living vertebrates, we generated transgenic zebrafish expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) driven by the POMC promoter. Zebrafish POMC-GFP is first expressed asymmetrically as two bilateral groups of cells most anterior to the neural ridge midline at 18-20 h post fertilization (hpf). POMC-GFP positive cells then fuse into a single cell mass within the pituitary anlage after 24 hpf, and subsequently organize as distinct anterior and posterior domains between 48 to 64 hpf. Immunohistochemical studies with ACTH and 
MSH antisera showed that POMC-GFP was mainly targeted to both anterior and posterior pituitary corticotrophs, whereas posterior pituitary region melanotrophs did not express GFP. To determine in vivo zebrafish corticotroph responses, dexamethasone (10\-5 M) was added to live embryos, which selectively suppressed POMC-GFP expression in the anterior group of corticotrophs, suggesting a distinct domain responsive to glucocorticoid feedback. Transgenic zebrafish with specific POMC-GFP expression in pituitary corticotrophs offers a powerful genetic system for in vivo study of vertebrate corticotroph lineage development.
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