267-The Role of YAP and pYAP in Retinal Regeneration of Zebrafish

A remarkable feature of Zebrafish, not found in mammals, is their ability to regenerate their retinal cells. Even during the later stages of development in adulthood, this ability does not waiver. After sustaining damage to the retina, Humans are unable to recover, which makes studying the mechanism of Zebrafish regeneration of great importance and relevance. Understanding the differences could help further advances toward discovering cures for blindness in Humans one day. The Hippo (Hpo) pathway is a signaling pathway in animals that ultimately controls the size of organs by either promoting or inhibiting cell division. Activation of the pathway leads to a downstream cascade that ends with the phosphorylation of the protein YAP and thereby turns into pYAP. YAP normally interacts with the nucleus and promotes cell division, therefore phosphorylation into pYAP will inhibit cell division. It’s been identified that the Hpo pathway as a factor that prevents retinal regeneration in mammals. The aim of this study is to determine if the Hpo pathway is involved in Zebrafish retinal regeneration. The levels of YAP and pYAP were tracked throughout multiple different times of exposure to light damage with Immunohistochemistry procedures utilized to visualize the protein levels.