MO-CTL treatment did not affect the level of c-FLIP, whereas MO1 injection down-regulated c-FLIPS to 36% of the www.selleckchem.com/products/PLX-4720.html control level (Fig. 6A). More important, we found that coinjection of mRNA encoding human c-FLIPS (75 pg/embryo) could

rescue the MO1-induced liver defect in 75% of the injected embryos (Fig. 6B; N = 44). Taken together, these results suggested that knockdown of SNX7 induced the degradation of c-FLIPS, which led to the activation of the caspase 8–dependent pathway and subsequent cell death. Many molecules involved in hepatogenesis have been identified from various model systems. The majority of them can be grouped into one of the following categories: (1) cell-signaling molecules, such as FGF, BMP, Wnt, Hedgehog, or RA pathway-related genes; (2) transcriptional factors, such as Gata and HNF family members,

Hhex, Prox1, and so on; and (3) epigenetics-related molecules, such as Dnmt1/2, Hdac1/3, and Uhrf1. We report here that SNX7, a SNX family member supposed to be involved in vesicular trafficking and protein sorting, is crucial for embryonic liver development in zebrafish. SNX7 is an early endosome and multivesicular-body–distributed protein (data not shown). Interestingly, a recent study reveals that tomm22, check details a regulator of protein traffic from cytoplasm into the mitochondria, is required for liver development in zebrafish.24 Disruption of this gene induces extensive apoptosis of hepatocytes, which is similar to what we observed in SNX7 morphants. On the other hand, mutation in vacuolar protein sorting protein 18 (vps18), a class C vacuolar protein-sorting gene, causes hepatomegaly (i.e., large liver) in zebrafish.47 Vps18 is involved in the regulation of vesicles from late endosome to lysosome, and mutation in vps18 causes the accumulation of cytoplasmic vacuoles, which eventually leads to the hepatomegaly phenotype. These observations suggest that different subcellular protein-traffic pathways could affect different aspects of liver development. Thus, SNX7 could provide us with new opportunities to study the molecular

mechanism of liver development. The specification of hepatoblasts was normal in SNX7 morphants; however, these cells underwent apoptosis Thalidomide during the budding stage. Knockdown of SNX7 by siRNAs in Hela or HepG2 cells induced apoptosis as well. We revealed that SNX7 regulated the death-receptor–mediated caspase 8 pathway, but not the mitochondrion-related caspase 9 pathway. c-FLIP is a catalytically inactive homolog of caspase 8 and is able to interfere with the activation of caspase 8. We demonstrated that down-regulation of SNX7 decreased the intracellular level of c-FLIPS, and this regulation appeared to be proteasome dependent (data not shown). Proteasomes are large protein complexes involved in ubiquitin-dependent protein degradation.