Isolation and developmental expression of tyrosinase family genes in Xenopus laevis
Isolation and developmental expression of tyrosinase family genes in Xenopus laevis
复制标题
DOI：
10.1034/j.1600-0749.2003.00064.x
复制
发表时间：
2003-10-01
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Yamamoto, H
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kumasaka, M;Sato, S;Yamamoto, H
脊椎动物中的酪氨酸酶基因家族由编码黑素生成酶的三个相关成员组成，即酪氨酸酶（Tyr）、酪氨酸酶相关蛋白-1（TRP-1，Tyrp 1）和酪氨酸酶相关蛋白-2（Dct，TRP-2，Tyrp 2）。这些蛋白质催化色素细胞中黑色素的产生，并在决定脊椎动物的着色中发挥重要作用。这是第一份研究两栖动物胚胎发育过程中色素细胞中黑素生成基因表达的报告。非洲爪蟾提供了一个有用的实验系统，分析色素细胞的分子机制。然而，在这种动物中，不仅关于发育表达而且关于色素沉着基因的分离的信息很少。在这项研究中，我们分离的同源Tyr，Tyrp 1和Dct非洲爪蟾（XlTyr，XlTyrp 1，和XlDct）。我们研究了他们的表达在发展过程中使用原位杂交，发现他们都表达在神经嵴衍生的黑色素细胞，其中大部分迁移通过内侧通路，并在开发间脑衍生的视网膜色素上皮细胞（RPE）。此外，XlDct的表达早于XlTyr和XlTyrp 1，这表明XlDct是其中最适合黑色素产生细胞的标记基因。在迁移性成黑素细胞和未着色的RPE中检测到XlDct表达。此外，XlDct在松果体中也有表达。这些研究的总和表明，酪氨酸酶家族的基因的表达是保守的，在两栖动物的色素细胞，并使用XlDct作为色素细胞的标记基因将允许进一步研究的色素细胞分化的发育机制，使用非洲爪蟾。
The tyrosinase family of genes in vertebrates consists of three related members encoding melanogenic enzymes, tyrosinase (Tyr), tyrosinase-related protein-1 (TRP-1, Tyrp1) and tyrosinase-related protein-2 (Dct, TRP-2, Tyrp2). These proteins catalyze melanin production in pigment cells and play important roles in determining vertebrate coloration. This is the first report examining melanogenic gene expression in pigment cells during embryonic development of amphibians. Xenopus provides a useful experimental system for analyzing molecular mechanisms of pigment cells. However, in this animal little information is available not only about the developmental expression but also about the isolation of pigmentation genes. In this study, we isolated homologues of Tyr, Tyrp1 and Dct in Xenopus laevis (XlTyr, XlTyrp1, and XlDct). We studied their expression during development using in situ hybridization and found that all of them are expressed in neural crest-derived melanophores, most of which migrate through the medial pathway, and in the developing diencephalon-derived retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). Further, XlDct was expressed earlier than XlTyr and XlTyrp1, which suggests that XlDct is the most suitable marker gene for melanin-producing cells among them. XlDct expression was detected in migratory melanoblasts and in the unpigmented RPE. In addition, the expression of XlDct was detected in the pineal organ. The sum of these studies suggests that expression of the tyrosinase family of genes is conserved in pigment cells of amphibians and that using XlDct as a marker gene for pigment cells will allow further study of the developmental mechanisms of pigment cell differentiation using Xenopus.