Danio rerio strain:5D Tropical Targeted Locus (Loci). Danio rerio strain:5D Tropical

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) is necessary for proper vertebrate embryonic development, but can be inappropriately activated by a diverse group of xenobiotics including chlorinated dioxins, biphenyls, and polyaromatic hydrocarbons. To identify downstream AHR targets, RNA was isolated from 48hpf zebrafish embryos (exposed to 10uM 7,12-benz[a]anthracene quinone) and sequenced using paired-end Illumina sequencing. One of the most elevated transcripts was a long intergenic noncoding RNA (lincRNA), which we dubbed sox9b long intergenic non-coding RNA (slincR) due to its adjacency to the Sox9b gene (ortholog of human Sox9). AHR-dependent repression of Sox9, a conserved transcriptional regulator required for proper vertebrate development, is well established in both mammals and fish; however, the exact mechanism of repression is unknown. We sequenced the predominant slincR transcript, which contains 3 exons and is 467nt long. The goal of future research is to investigate the in vivo functional role of slincR and provide mechanistic insight into how the AHR2 and Sox9b transcriptional networks intersect during development and AHR2 activation.