Studies of markers of vasculature and immunological systems in eyes of lumpfish, a North Atlantic Teleost

• Main Author: Hyde, Tatiana
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Memorial University of Newfoundland 2022
• Subjects: The Louse; Atlantic salmon; North Atlantic; Salmo salar
• Online Access: https://research.library.mun.ca/15888/; https://research.library.mun.ca/15888/1/converted.pdf

Lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus), a North Atlantic teleost, is used as a cleaner fish to delouse salmon in the commercial Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar) farming industry. Lumpfish require high visual acuity to observe and consume prey, such as the louse on salmon skin. Hematopoiesis, a process in which stem and progenitor cells differentiate to form blood cellular components occurs primarily in the bone marrow, but during fetal development it can in rare cases occur in “extramedullary” structures such as the ocular choroid vasculature of the eye. The choroid vasculature is a specialized vasculature that services the posterior retina and accounts for the majority of the blood flow to the eye. The comparable vasculature structures between lumpfish and human provide a new opportunity for a new model system for studying vasculature biology. I propose that the development of the posterior vasculature and hematopoiesis system of the lumpfish eye involves unique expression markers that exaggerate and support natural extramedullary hematopoiesis in ocular vascular structures. To date, there has been no report of such processes in the lumpfish eye. Here, I examined in lumpfish eyes, the expression of zonula occuldens-1 (ZO-1), chloride intracellular channel protein 2 (CLIC2), proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), cluster of differentiation 45 (CD45) and cluster of differentiation 10 (CD10), known markers of vascular and hematopoietic tissues in mammals. I studied the association of the aforementioned markers throughout the development of posterior ocular vascular and hematopoietic tissues of lumpfish. I found that CD45, CD10, CLIC2, PCNA and ZO-1 are not only present in the lumpfish eye throughout development, but also that CD10, CD45, CLIC2 and ZO-1 seem to be developmentally regulated. Characterizing the development of known markers of posterior ocular vascular-hematopoiesis-like tissues of lumpfish is important to gain a better understanding of ocular tissue development, homeostasis, and response to stress as well as ...