Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2019

Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster V28

miR-199a and its putative targets in Arctic charr development

Höfundar / Authors: Styrkár Þóroddsson(1), Kalina Hristova Kapralova(1), Zophonías Oddur Jónsson(1), Sigríður Rut Franzdóttir(1)

Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: 1.Háskóli Íslands

Kynnir / Presenter: Styrkár Þóroddsson

The four morphs of the Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) are divided into two limnetic i.e feeding in a water column and two benthic i.e feeding on benthic prey. The two limnetic morphs (Piscivorous charr and Planktivorous charr) have evenly protruding jaws, whereas the two benthic (Large benthivorous and Small benthivorous) have shorter lower than upper jaw, which are adaptations to limnetic and benthic ecological niches, respectively. The distinct craniofacial elements are built during embryonic development and the differences in craniofacial morphology are reflected in the variation of gene and regulatory elements expression. MicroRNA's (miRNA) are small, non-coding RNA's involved in post-transcriptional regulation of mRNA. Only ~22-24 nucleotide long, miRNAs imperfectly base-pair with complementary sequences of the 3'UTR of their target mRNA and have the ability to repress their translation. miRNAs are major regulators of development and are highly conserved in evolution. One such miRNA, miR-199a is of interest because it is expressed in several craniofacial elements during the development of the Arctic charr morphs. Using computational approaches (miRanda and SalmoBase 2.0) against a list of selected genes known to be involved in craniofacial development, we found BMP4, TIMP2, LUM and ETS2 to be putative targets of miR-199a. We are currently working on a validation of these putative targets using whole-mount in situ hybridisation (WISH).