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Abstract
Glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) is the enzyme responsible for the synthesis of GABA, the main inhibitory neurotransmitter of the central nervous system. Most vertebrates have two GAD genes, GAD1 and GAD2, each of which encodes their respective GAD enzyme and are thought to be expressed all inhibitory neurons of the mammalian spinal cord. Our lab has shown that there are three GAD genes in zebrafish – gad1a, gad1b, and gad2 – which appear to be differentially expressed in the zebrafish spinal cord at 1 day post-fertilization (dpf), and recent evidence has shown the presence of a fourth zebrafish GAD gene, termed gad3. We identified differential expression of each GAD gene by in situ hybridization. We have determined which interneuron cell types express gad1a, gad1b, and gad2 in the spinal cord at 1 dpf and have shown the expression pattern of gad3 through the first day of development in the zebrafish embryo.