About the Wilson lab

The primary aim of our research group is to elucidate the mechanisms that underlie the development of the vertebrate forebrain and eyes. 

We study the processes by which cells and tissues take shape, the signaling pathways that control cell migration and allocation of cell identity, the formation of neural circuits and the development of behavior. For our studies, we work with zebrafish, as the brains of fish embryos are relatively simple and are amenable to genetic, molecular and imaging approaches.

News

Wellcome Discovery Award film about our research into brain asymmetry.

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Publications

Click on an article below to read some brief summaries of our publications that need less scientific background to understand than the original paper.  

For a full list of Wilson lab publications by year, click here. 

Recent publications

Powell GT, Faro A, Zhao Y, Stickney H, Novellasdemunt L, Henriques P, Gestri G, Redhouse White E, Ren J, Lu W, Young RM, Hawkins TA, Cavodeassi F, Schwarz Q, Dreosti E, Raible DW, Li VSW, Wright GJ, Jones EY, Wilson SW.
Cachd1 interacts with Wnt receptors and regulates neuronal asymmetry in the zebrafish brain.
Science 384, 573-579 (2024). DOI:10.1126/science.ade6970

Ali, M.A., Lischka, K., Preuss, S.J., Trivedi, C.A., Bollmann, J.H. (2023)
A synaptic corollary discharge signal suppresses midbrain visual processing during saccade-like locomotion.
Nature communications. 14:75927592.

Chong-Morrison V, Mayes S, Simões FC, Senanayake U, Carroll DS, Riley PR, Wilson SW, Sauka-Spengler T.
Ac/Ds transposition for CRISPR/dCas9-SID4x epigenome modulation in zebrafish.
Biol Open. 12(6):bio059995. doi: 10.1242/bio.059995.

María Hernández-Bejarano, Gaia Gestri, Clinton Monfries, Lisa Tucker, Elena I. Dragomir, Isaac H. Bianco, Paola Bovolenta, Stephen W. Wilson, Florencia Cavodeassi (2022)
Foxd1-dependent induction of a temporal retinal character is required for visual function.
Development 149 (24) doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.200938

Tuschl K, White RJ, Trivedi C, Valdivia LE, Niklaus S, Bianco IH, Dadswell C, González-Méndez R, Sealy IM, Neuhauss SCF, Houart C, Rihel J, Wilson SW, Busch-Nentwich EM.
Loss of slc39a14 causes simultaneous manganese hypersensitivity and deficiency in zebrafish.
Dis Model Mech. 2022. doi: 10.1242/dmm.044594.

Turner KJ, Hawkins TA, Henriques PM, Valdivia LE, Bianco IH, Wilson SW and Folgueira M (2022)
A Structural Atlas of the Developing Zebrafish Telencephalon Based on Spatially-Restricted Transgene Expression.
Front. Neuroanat. 16:840924. doi: 10.3389/fnana.2022.840924

Kroll F, Powell GT, Ghosh M, Antinucci P, Hearn TJ, Tunbak H, Lim S, Dennis HW, Fernandez JM, Hoffman EJ, Whitmore D, Dreosti E, Wilson SW and Rihel J (2021).
A simple and effective F0 knockout method for rapid screening of behaviour and other complex phenotypes.
eLife 2021;10:e59683. DOI:10.7554/eLife.59683

Ingrid Lekk , Véronique Duboc, Ana Faro, Stephanos Nicolaou, Patrick Blader, Stephen W Wilson.
Sox1a mediates the ability of the parapineal to impart habenular left-right asymmetry.
eLife 2019;8:e47376 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.47376

Young RM, Hawkins TA, Cavodeassi F, Stickney HL, Schwarz Q, Lawrence LM, Wierzbicki C, Cheng BY, Luo J, Ambrosio EM, Klosner A, Sealy IM, Rowell J, Trivedi CA, Bianco IH, Allende ML, Busch-Nentwich EM, Gestri G, Wilson SW.
Compensatory growth renders Tcf7l1a dispensable for eye formation despite its requirement in eye field specification.
Elife. (2019) 8. doi: 10.7554/eLife.40093

Turner KJ, Hoyle J, Valdivia LE, Cerveny KL, Hart W, Mangoli M, Geisler R, Rees M, Houart C, Poole RJ, Wilson SW, Gestri G.
Abrogation of Stem Loop Binding Protein (Slbp) function leads to a failure of cells to transition from proliferation to differentiation, retinal coloboma and midline axon guidance deficits.
PLoS One. 2019 Jan 29;14(1):e0211073. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0211073. eCollection 2019.

Dahimene S1, Page KM1, Kadurin I1, Ferron L1, Ho DY1, Powell GT2, Pratt WS1, Wilson SW2, Dolphin AC3.
The α2δ-like Protein Cachd1 Increases N-type Calcium Currents and Cell Surface Expression and Competes with α2δ-1.
Cell Rep. 2018 Nov 6;25(6):1610-1621.e5. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.10.033.

Roussigné M, Wei L, Tsingos E, Kuchling F, Alkobtawi M, Tsalavouta M, Wittbrodt J, Carl M, Blader P, Wilson SW. (2018)
Left/right asymmetric collective migration of parapineal cells is mediated by focal FGF signaling activity in leading cells.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. pii: 201812016. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1812016115.

Gaia Gestri, Naiara Bazin-Lopez, Clarissa Scholes and Stephen W. Wilson (2018)
Cell Behaviors during Closure of the Choroid Fissure in the Developing Eye.
Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience. doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2018.00042

Anna M. Krasnow  1, Marc C. Ford  , Leonardo E. Valdivia, Stephen W. Wilson  and David Attwell (2018)
Regulation of developing myelin sheath elongation by oligodendrocyte calcium transients in vivo
Nature Neuroscience. 2018 .doi:10.1038/s41593-017-0031-y

Stainier DYR, Raz E, Lawson ND, Ekker SC, Burdine RD, Eisen JS, Ingham PW, Schulte-Merker S, Yelon D, Weinstein BM, Mullins MC, Wilson SW, Ramakrishnan L, Amacher SL, Neuhauss SCF, Meng A, Mochizuki N, Panula P, Moens CB.(2017)
Guidelines for morpholino use in zebrafish.
Plos Genetics. 2017 Oct 19;13(10):e1007000. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1007000.

Shainier, I., Buchshtab, A., Hawkins, T.A., Wilson, S.W., Cone, R.D., and Gothilf, Y. (2017)
Novel hypophysiotropic AgRP2 neurons and pineal cells revealed by BAC transgenesis in zebrafish.
Sci Rep.  2017 Mar 20;7:44777. doi: 10.1038/srep44777.

Karin Tuschl, Esther Meyer, Leonardo E. Valdivia, Ningning Zhao, Chris Dadswell, Alaa Abdul-Sada, Christina Y. Hung, Michael A. Simpson, W. K. Chong, Thomas S. Jacques, Randy L. Woltjer, Simon Eaton, Allison Gregory, Lynn Sanford, Eleanna Kara, Henry Houlden, Stephan M. Cuno, Holger Prokisch, Lorella Valletta, Valeria Tiranti, Rasha Younis, Eamonn R. Maher, John Spencer, Ania Straatman-Iwanowska, Paul Gissen, Laila A. M. Selim, Guillem Pintos-Morell, Wifredo Coroleu-Lletget, Shekeeb S. Mohammad, Sangeetha Yoganathan, Russell C. Dale, Maya Thomas, Jason Rihel, Olaf A. Bodamer, Caroline A. Enns, Susan J. Hayflick, Peter T. Clayton, Philippa B. Mills, Manju A. Kurian & Stephen W. Wilson (2016)
Mutations in SLC39A14 disrupt manganese homeostasis and cause childhood-onset parkinsonism-dystonia
Nat Commun. 2016 Jun 10

Turner, K. J., Hawkins, T. A., Yáñez, J., Anadón, R., Wilson, S. W., & Folgueira, M (2016)
Afferent Connectivity of the Zebrafish Habenulae
Front Neural Circuits. 2016 Apr 26;10:30. doi: 10.3389/fncir.2016.00030. eCollection 2016.

Gaston-Massuet C, McCabe MJ, Scagliotti V, Young RM, Carreno G, Gregory LC, Jayakody SA, Pozzi S, Gualtieri A, Basu B, Koniordou M, Wu CI, Bancalari RE, Rahikkala E, Veijola R, Lopponen T, Graziola F, Turton J, Signore M, Mousavy Gharavy SN, Charolidi N, Sokol SY, Andoniadou CL, Wilson SW, Merrill BJ, Dattani MT, Martinez-Barbera JP. (2016)
Transcription factor 7-like 1 is involved in hypothalamo-pituitary axis development in mice and humans. 
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016 Jan 13. pii: 201503346.

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People

Past group members can be found here. 

Alumni still working with us.

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