Zebrafish retinal proteome during experimental degeneration and regeneration

Zebrafish spontaneously regenerate the retina after injury. Currently, studies have observed gene expression profiles in this species however this may be a poor reflection of protein function. To further address this and expand our understanding of the regenerative process in the zebrafish, we compared the proteomic profile of the retina during injury and upon regeneration. Ouabain was injected intravitreously to create a model of degeneration and regeneration of the retina which was extracted at 0, 3 and 18 days after injection. Differences in protein expression indicates reduced metabolic processing, and increase in fibrin clot formation, with significant upregulation of fibrinogen gamma polypeptide, apolipoproteins A-Ib and A-II, galectin-1, and vitellogenin-6 during degeneration when compared to normal retina. In addition, cytoskeleton and membrane transport proteins were considerably altered during regeneration, with the highest fold upregulation observed for tubulin beta 2A, histone H2B and brain type fatty acid binding protein. Key proteins identified in this study may play an important role in the regeneration of the zebrafish retina and investigations on the potential regulation of these proteins may support future investigations in this field.