Victoria Prince, Ph.D.

Research Summary

A major area of interest in the Prince lab is zebrafish pancreas development.  Like the mammalian pancreas the zebrafish pancreas comprises both endocrine cells, the pancreatic islets responsible for blood sugar homeostasis, and exocrine cells, which function in digestion. In addition, development of the zebrafish pancreas is well conserved with mammals. The zebrafish therefore provides a useful model system in which to study pancreas development. In ongoing projects we are focusing on understanding the mechanisms through which pancreatic progenitors are specified from undifferentiated endoderm, and in particular the roles of signaling molecules such as retinoic acid in this process.  Insights from normal development can inform protocols to differentiate stem cells into pancreatic islets in vitro. Such islets will eventually be useful for transplantation therapies to cure diabetes. In addition, we are using the zebrafish pancreas to assess cellular phenotypes caused by mutant variants of human insulin that have been isolated from patients with neonatal diabetes.

Selected Papers

Kinkel MD and Prince VE (2009). On the diabetic menu: Zebrafish as a model for pancreas development and function. Bioessays in press 

Kinkel MD, Eames SC, Alonzo MA and Prince VE (2008). Cdx4 has multiple roles in pancreas development and is required in the endoderm to correctly localize the foregut. Development 135: 919-929 

Elsen GE, Choi LY, Millen KJ, Grinblat Y and Prince VE. (2008). Zic1 and Zic4 regulate zebrafish roof plate specification and hindbrain ventricle morphogenesis. Developmental Biology 314: 376-392. 

Rohrschneider, MR, Elsen, GE and Prince, VE. (2007). Zebrafish Hoxb1a regulates multiple downstream targets including prickle1b. Developmental Biology 309, 358-372. 

Hurley IA, Mueller RL, Dunn, KA, Schmidt EJ, Friedman M, Ho RK, Prince VE, Yang Z, Thomas MG and Coates MI. (2007). A New Time-scale for Ray-Finned Fish Evolution. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 274, 489-498. 

Skromne I, Thorsen D, Hale M, Prince VE and Ho, RK. (2007). Repression of the hindbrain developmental program by Cdx factors is required for the specification of the vertebrate spinal cord. Development 134, 2147-2158. 

Ward, AB, Warga, RM and Prince VE. (2007). Origin of the zebrafish endocrine and exocrine pancreas. Developmental Dynamics 236, 1558-1569. 

Stafford D, White R, Kinkel, M, Linville A Schilling TF and Prince VE. (2006). Retinoids signal directly to zebrafish endoderm to specify insulin-expressing β-cells. Development 133, 949-956. 

Hale M, Kheirbek M, Schriefer JE, and Prince VE. (2004). The function of Mauthner cell duplicates in startle behavior: Insights into the evolution of new neural circuits. J. Neurosci. 24, 3070-3076. 

Hunter, M. P. and Prince, V. E. (2002). Zebrafish hox paralogue group 2 genes function redundantly as selector genes to pattern the second pharyngeal arch. Dev Biol 247: 367-89. 

Moens, C. B. and Prince, V. E. (2002). Constructing the hindbrain: insights from the zebrafish. Dev Dyn 224: 1-17. 

Stafford, D. and Prince, V. E. (2002). Retinoic acid signaling is required for a critical early step in zebrafish pancreatic development. Curr Biol 12: 1215-20.