Requirement for math5 in the development of retinal ganglion cells

  1. Steven W. Wang1,3,
  2. Byong Su Kim1,3,
  3. Kan Ding2,3,
  4. Huan Wang2,
  5. Dantong Sun1,
  6. Randy L. Johnson1,
  7. William H. Klein1, and
  8. Lin Gan1,2,4
  1. 1Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas 77030, USA; 2Center for Aging and Developmental Biology, Box 645, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14642, USA

Abstract

math5 is a murine orthologue of atonal, a bHLH proneural gene essential for the formation of photoreceptors and chordotonal organs in Drosophila. The expression ofmath5 coincides with the onset of retinal ganglion cell (RGC) differentiation. Targeted deletion of math5 blocks the initial differentiation of 80% of RGCs and results in an increase in differentiated amacrine cells. Furthermore, the absence ofmath5 abolishes the retinal expression of brn-3b and the formation of virtually all brn-3b-expressing RGCs. These results imply that math5 is a proneural gene essential for RGC differentiation and that math5 acts upstream to activatebrn-3b-dependent differentiation processes in RGCs.

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Footnotes

  • 3 These authors contributed equally to this article.

  • 4 Corresponding author.

  • E-MAIL lin_gan{at}urmc.rochester.edu; FAX (716) 756-7665.

  • Article and publication are at www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.855301.

    • Received September 27, 2000.
    • Accepted November 20, 2000.
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