Vertebrates that include an aquatic larval stage in their life cycles, such as fish and frogs, utilize a simple primitive kidney to perform renal functions until they develop their large (and more human like) adult kidneys. These simple kidneys are called pronephroi. In essence these organs resemble a single human nephron, as opposed to the million nephrons found in a adult human kidney. The key advantage of pronephroi as a model for investigating nephric development is they form in organisms that are perfectly suited to embryological, genetic and molecular analysis. Genes involved in regulating organ formation are simple to isolate, and their function easy to test using either microinjection or genetics. We and others have shown that similar genetic networks function to regulate the development of both simple and complex kidneys and we are working to exploit the many experimental advantages of simple model systems to learn more about how genes regulate this process. Current experiments are investigating the genetic interactions that subdivide the developing pronephros into its various functional subunits, the tubules, the distal segment, the nephric duct and the glomus. Techniques include cloning, microinjection, embryo microsurgery, in situ hybridization, confocal and deconvolution microscopy
