Expression Patterns of Five Novel Clones that Initially Identified to Express Preferentially in Pluripotent Embyonic Cells But Not in Multipotent Mesenchymal Stem Cells

초록

As an effort to understand the fundamental mechanisms for the maintenance of self-renewal, immortality, and pluripotency of early mouse embryos and stem cells, we have started a global survey of gene expression in the mouse morula and blastula embryos as well as embryonic stem cells (ESCs) using cDNA microarray. We also compared expression profiles of genes in ESCs to those of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Comparative analyses of their expression profiles identified putative clones that expressed specifically in specific samples or not in a specific sample. In this study, 5 EST clones that expressed in morula and blastular embryos as well as in ESCs, but not in MSCs were chosen for the analysis of their expression patterns. One clone (#3) showed strong expression in ESCs, but not in differentiating ESCs, whereas other three clones gradually increased their expression during these periods. In adult, one clone (#5) showed spleen-specific expression, whereas others expressed ubiquitously with strong tissue specificity. Non-radioactive in situ hybridization assay was performed to see localized expression of each clone in the 7.5, 11.5, and 15.5d embryos. As a result, all of clones showed their unique expression patterns with different tissue-specificity. This kind work will provide fundamentals for further study on the functional aspect of novel genes.