We just released in BioRxiv a new preprint entitled “3D atlas of the pituitary gland of the model fish medaka“. This paper which has been developed by our 2 PhD students: Muhammad Rahmad Royan and Khadeeja Siddique together with our collaborators at University of Oslo. It provides the first online 3D atlas of a teleost pituitary, which presents a valuable resource to the endocrinology and model fish community and reveals the 3D spatial distribution of the seven endocrine cell types and blood vessels in the juvenile/adult male and female pituitary.
Abstract: In vertebrates, the anterior pituitary plays a crucial role in regulating several essential physiological processes via the secretion of at least seven peptide hormones by different endocrine cell types. Comparative and comprehensive knowledge of the spatial distribution of those endocrine cell types is required to better understand their role during the animal life. Using medaka as the model and several combinations of multi-color fluorescence in situ hybridization, we present the first 3D atlas revealing the gland-wide distribution of seven endocrine cell populations: lactotropes, thyrotropes, Lh and Fsh gonadotropes, somatotropes, and pomca-expressing cells (corticotropes and melanotropes) in the anterior pituitary of a teleost fish. By combining in situ hybridization and immunofluorescence techniques, we deciphered the location of corticotropes and melanotropes within the pomca-expressing cell population. The 3D localization approach reveals sexual dimorphism of tshba- and pomca-expressing cells in the adult medaka pituitary. Finally, we show the existence of bi-hormonal cells co-expressing lhb-fshb, fshb-tshba and lhb-sl using single-cell transcriptomics analysis and in situ hybridization. This study offers a solid basis for future comparative studies of the teleost pituitary and its developmental plasticity.
The article can be find here
