Zebrafish glial-vascular interactions progressively expand over the course of brain development
Lewis G. Gall,
Courtney M. Stains,
Moises Freitas-Andrade,
Bill Z. Jia,
Nishi Patel,
Sean G. Megason,
Baptiste Lacoste,
Natasha M. O’Brown
Affiliations
Lewis G. Gall
Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA
Courtney M. Stains
Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA
Moises Freitas-Andrade
Neuroscience Program, The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Bill Z. Jia
Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Nishi Patel
Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA
Sean G. Megason
Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Baptiste Lacoste
Neuroscience Program, The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada; Department of Cellular & Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada; University of Ottawa Brain and Mind Research Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Natasha M. O’Brown
Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Rutgers University, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA; Corresponding author
Summary: Glial-vascular interactions are critical for the formation and maintenance of brain blood vessels and the blood-brain barrier (BBB) in mammals, but their role in the zebrafish BBB remains unclear. Using three glial gene promoters—gfap, glast, and glastini (a truncated glast)—we explored glial-vascular development in zebrafish. Sparse labeling showed fewer glial-vascular interactions at early stages, with glial coverage and contact area increasing with age. Stable transgenic lines for glast and glastini revealed similar developmental increases, starting at ∼30% coverage at 3 days post-fertilization (dpf) and peaking at ∼60% by 10 dpf, and consistently higher glial coverage in the forebrain and midbrain than in the hindbrain. Electron microscopy analyses showed similar progressive increases in glial-vascular interactions, with maximal coverage of ∼70% in adults—significantly lower than the ∼100% seen in mammals. These findings define the temporal and regional maturation of glial-vascular interactions in zebrafish and highlight differences from mammalian systems.
