Oryzias latipes, known as medaka, is a model organism from East Asia. Breeding of this small, egg-laying freshwater teleost fish has long been popular among hobbyists in Japan. Now, as biological science has entered the genome era, the medaka provides significant advantages that make it one of the most valuable vertebrate models: a large collection of spontaneous mutants collected over a century, the presence of highly polymorphic inbred lines established over decades, and a recently completed genome sequence.
Medaka: A Model for Organogenesis, Human Disease, and Evolution is the first comprehensive monograph to cover a variety of medaka research. It opens with a historical view of medaka, followed by a series of research topics in the four major areas where the medaka is increasingly important: genomics, genetics, and resources; organogenesis and disease models; germ cells, sex determination, and reproduction; and, evolution. Readers will find state-of-the-art information on medaka genetics and genomics such as the first isolation of active transposons in vertebrates, the influence of chromatin structure on sequence variation, fine QTL analysis, and versatile mutants as human disease models.
1 A Glance at the Past of Medaka Fish Biology
Part I Genomics, Genetics, and Resources
2 Genetics, Genomics, and Biological Resources in the Medaka, Oryzias latipes
3 Chromatin-Associated Periodicity in Genetic Variation Downstream of Transcriptional Start Sites
4 Transposable Elements Tol1 and Tol2
5 A Systematic Screen for Mutations Affecting Organogenesis in Medaka
Part II Organogenesis and Disease Models
6 Medaka Bone Development
7 Anatomical Atlas of Blood Vascular System of Medaka
8 Kidney Development, Regeneration, and Polycystic Kidney Disease in Medaka
9 Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia in Fish: The Analysis of a Novel Medaka Mutant Kintoun
10 p53-Deficient Medaka Created by TILLING
11 Medaka Spontaneous Mutants for Body Coloration
12 Craniofacial Traits
13 Double Anal Fin (Da): A Medaka Mutant Exhibiting a Mirror-Image Pattern Duplication of the Dorsal--Ventral Axis
Part III Germ Cells, Sex Determination, and Reproduction
14 Interaction of Germ Cells and Gonadal Somatic Cells During Gonadal Formation
15 Frequent Turnover of Sex Chromosomes in the Medaka Fishes
16 Function of the Medaka Male Sex-Determining Gene
17 The Sex-Determining Gene in Medaka
18 Endocrine Regulation of Oogenesis in the Medaka, Oryzias latipes
19 Interspecific Medaka Hybrids as Experimental Models for Investigating Cell Division and Germ Cell Development
Part IV Evolution
20 Reconstruction of the Vertebrate Ancestral Genome Reveals Dynamic Genome Reorganization in Early Vertebrates
21 Genome Duplication and Subfunction Partitioning: Sox9 in Medaka and Other Vertebrates
22 Human Population Genetics Meets Medaka
23 Evolution of the Major Histocompatibility Complex: A Lesson from the Oryzias Species
24 Molecular Evolution of Teleostean Hatching Enzymes and Their Egg Envelope Digestion Mechanism: An Aspect of Co-Evolution of Protease and Substrate
Index