S. Childs et al., Zebrafish dracula encodes ferrochelatase and its mutation provides a modelfor erythropoietic protoporphyria, CURR BIOL, 10(16), 2000, pp. 1001-1004
Exposure to light precipitates the symptoms of several genetic disorders th
at affect both skin and internal organs. It is presumed that damage to non-
cutaneous organs is initiated indirectly by light, but this is difficult to
study in mammals. Zebrafish have an essentially transparent periderm for t
he first days of development. In a previous large-scale genetic screen we i
solated a mutation, dracula (drc), which manifested as a light-dependent ly
sis of red blood cells [1]. We report here that protoporphyrin IX accumulat
es in the mutant embryos, suggesting a deficiency in the activity of ferroc
helatase, the terminal enzyme in the pathway for heme biosynthesis. We find
that homozygous drc(m248) mutant embryos have a G-->T transversion at a sp
lice donor site in the ferrochelatase gene, creating a premature stop codon
. The mutant phenotype, which shows light-dependent hemolysis and liver dis
ease, is similar to that seen in humans with erythropoietic protoporphyria,
a disorder of ferrochelatase.