The spatiotemporal development of vertebrate retina is regulated by a variety of genes. The zinc finger transcription factors zic5 and zic2a are located close to each other in the chromosome. They have similar expression patterns, and both play important roles in the development of the retina and nervous system. Here, we used ECR browser and gfp fluorescence report experiment to identify a 290bp enhancer sequence ECR3, which is located at 3 kb upstream of zic5 and 10 kb downstream of zic2a, and it can drive the specific expression of gfp in the retina. pT2KXIGQ-ECR3 was used to construct a transgenic zebrafish line Tg(ECR3-290: gfp) which first exhibits specific green fluorescence in the whole retina area at 24hpf. Then the expression region was gradually limited to ganglion cell layer (GCL) and lasted through adulthood. This expression pattern is highly consistent with the zic5 and zic2a at retina. These results indicate that the 290bp enhancer might be an important element to regulate the expression of zic5 and zic2a genes in ganglion cells, and this transgenic line is an important tool for studying the development of retina.

脊椎动物视网膜的时空发育受多种基因调控。锌指转录因子zic5和zic2a在染色体中彼此靠近。它们具有相似的表达模式，并且都在视网膜和神经系统的发育中发挥重要作用。在这里，我们使用ECR浏览器和GFP荧光报告实验，以确定一个290bp增强子序列ECR3，其位于3 kb的上游ZIC5和10kb的下游zic2a，并且它可以驱动的特异性表达GFP在视网膜上。pT2KXIGQ-ECR3 用于构建转基因斑马鱼系 Tg(ECR3-290: gfp）首先在整个视网膜区域以 24hpf 显示出特定的绿色荧光。然后表达区域逐渐限于神经节细胞层（GCL）并持续到成年。这种表达模式与视网膜上的zic5和zic2a高度一致。这些结果表明，290bp 增强子可能是调节神经节细胞中zic5和zic2a基因表达的重要元件，该转基因系是研究视网膜发育的重要工具。