Anming Meng

 

E-mail：mengam(at)mail(dot)tsinghua(dot)edu(dot)cn 

Research Area:
In invertebrate and vertebrates, an embryo undergoes rapid cell proliferation immediately after fertilization, and the resulted homogeneous multi-cell embryo will then be regionalized into domains of different cell fates through cell differentiation, and form three germ layers, endoderm, mesoderm and ectoderm during gastrulation. Each germ layer will further differentiate, along dorsal-ventral, anterior-posterior and/or animal pole-vegetal pole axes, to commit to different fates and form various functional tissues and organs. In the past two decades, several signaling pathways, e.g., Wnt, TGF-beta and Fgf, have been found to play important roles in germ layer induction and patterning in vertebrates. These signaling pathways have to be tightly regulated, and otherwise embryos will die or form abnormal tissues and organs. Taking advantages of the zebrafish model, my lab aims to identify factors, in particular maternal factors, which regulate zygotic gene activation and Wnt and TGF-beta signaling. The identified factors will be studied for their developmental functions and underlying mechanisms. We hope that our study will deepen understanding of regulation of early embryonic development. 
 

Selected Publications:

1. Jia S, Dai F, Wu D, Lin X, Xing C, Xue Y, Wang Y, Xiao M, Wu W, Feng XH*, Meng A*. 2012. Protein phosphatase 4 cooperates with Smads to promote BMP signaling in dorsoventral patterning of zebrafish embryos. Development Cell, 22(5):1065-78.

2. Li Z, Wang Y, Zhang M, Xu P, Huang H, Wu D, Meng A*. 2012. The Amotl2 gene inhibits Wnt/β-catenin signaling and regulates embryonic development in zebrafish. J Biol Chem, 287(16):13005-15.

3. Zhang M, Zhang J, Lin SC, Meng A*. 2012. β-Catenin 1 and β-catenin 2 play similar and distinct roles in left-right asymmetric development of zebrafish embryos. Development, 139(11):2009-19.

4. Zheng X, Yang S, Han Y, Zhao X, Zhao L, Tian T, Tong J, Xu P, Xiong C, Meng A*. 2012. Loss of zygotic NUP107 protein causes missing of pharyngeal skeleton and other tissue defects with impaired nuclear pore function in zebrafish embryos. J Biol Chem, 287(45):38254-64.

5. Liu X, Ning G, Meng A*, Wang Q*. 2012. MicroRNA-206 regulates cell movements during zebrafish gastrulation by targeting prickle1a and regulating c-Jun N-terminal kinase 2 phosphorylation. Mol Cell Biol, 32(14):2934-42.

6. Dworkin S, Darido C, Georgy SR, Wilanowski T, Srivastava S, Ellett F, Pase L, Han Y, Meng A, Heath JK, Lieschke GJ, Jane SM. 2012. Midbrain-hindbrain boundary patterning and morphogenesis are regulated by diverse grainy head-like 2-dependent pathways. Development, 139(3):525-36.

7. Peng J, Zhang J, Meng A. 2012. The tiny zebrafish keep swimming fast in the developmental biology pond.J Genet Genomics, 20;39(9):419-20.

8. Jia SJ, Meng AM. 2012. The development of zebrafish research in China. 遗传. 34(9):1082-8.

9. Zhao X, Zhao L, Tian T, Zhang Y, Tong J, Zheng X, Meng A. Interruption of cenph causes mitotic failure and embryonic death, and its haploinsufficiency suppresses cancer in zebrafish. J Biol Chem. 2010 Sep 3;285(36):27924-34. Epub 2010 Jun 23.

10. Li X, Jia S, Wang S, Wang Y, Meng A. Mta3-NuRD complex is a master regulator for initiation of primitive hematopoiesis in vertebrate embryos. Blood. 2009 Dec 24;114(27):5464-72. Epub 2009 Oct 28.

11. Zhang Y, Li X, Qi JJ, Wang J, Liu X, Zhang H, Lin SC, Meng AM. 2009. Rock2 controls TGF-beta signaling and inhibits mesoderm induction in zebrafish embryos. Journal of Cell Science, 122:2197-207.

12. Jia SJ, Wu D, Xing CC, Meng AM. 2009. Smad2/3 activities are required for induction and patterning of the neuroectoderm in zebrafish.Developmental Biology, 333:273-284.

13. Zhao L, Zhao XY, Tian T, Lu QL, Skrbo-Larssen N, Wu D, Kuang Z, Zheng XF, Han YC, Yang SY, Zhang CM, Meng AM. 2008. Heart-specific isoform of tropomyosin4 is essential for heartbeat in zebrafish embryos. Cardiovascular Research, 80(2):200-208.

14. Meng FW, Cheng X, Yang LL, Hou N, Yang X, Meng AM. 2008. Accelerated re-epithelialization in Dpr2-deficient mice is associated with enhanced response to TGF-beta.