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Brain Development pp 45–57Cite as

Generating Transgenic Reporter Lines for Studying Nervous System Development in the Cnidarian Nematostella vectensis

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Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 2047))

Abstract

Neurons often display complex morphologies with long and fine processes that can be difficult to visualize, in particular in living animals. Transgenic reporter lines in which fluorescent proteins are expressed in defined populations of neurons are important tools that can overcome these difficulties. By using membrane-attached fluorescent proteins, such reporter transgenes can identify the complete outline of subsets of neurons or they can highlight the subcellular localization of fusion proteins, for example at pre- or postsynaptic sites. The relative stability of fluorescent proteins furthermore allows the tracing of the progeny of cells over time and can therefore provide information about potential roles of the gene whose regulatory elements are controlling the expression of the fluorescent protein. Here we describe the generation of transgenic reporter lines in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis, a cnidarian model organism for studying the evolution of developmental processes. We also provide an overview of existing transgenic Nematostella lines that have been used to study conserved and derived aspects of nervous system development.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by funding from the University of Bergen and the Research Council of Norway (to F.R.) and by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) (P27353) to U.T.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sars International Centre for Marine Molecular Biology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Fabian Rentzsch

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Fabian Rentzsch

  3. Department for Molecular Evolution and Development, Faculty of Life Sciences, Center of Organismal Systems Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Eduard Renfer & Ulrich Technau

Authors
  1. Fabian Rentzsch
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  2. Eduard Renfer
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  3. Ulrich Technau
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fabian Rentzsch .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland

    Simon G. Sprecher

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Rentzsch, F., Renfer, E., Technau, U. (2020). Generating Transgenic Reporter Lines for Studying Nervous System Development in the Cnidarian Nematostella vectensis. In: Sprecher, S. (eds) Brain Development. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2047. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9732-9_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9732-9_3

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  • Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-9731-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-9732-9

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