Wnt signaling in fate determination of retinal precursors

Abstract

The continuous growth of fish retina requires life-long differentiation of retinal progenitor cells into the proper numbers of terminally differentiated neurons of the mature retina. In this process, both, proliferation and differentiation of progenitor cells are tightly coordinated. We address the impact of the Wnt signaling pathway by clonal interference and quantitation of downstream reporters. This will address the relative contribution of canonical Wnt signaling to proliferation and differentiation of specific progenitor cells along the differentiation cascade. The quantitative analysis will allow establishing a mathematical model to predict and test the impact of Wnt signaling in other contexts