Open AccessDevelopmental regulation of glutamine synthetase and carbonic anhydrase II in neural retina.
Author(s) -
Lily Vardimon,
Lyle E. Fox,
A.A. Moscona
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.011
H-Index - 771
eISSN - 1091-6490
pISSN - 0027-8424
DOI - 10.1073/pnas.83.23.9060
Subject(s) - biology , glutamine synthetase , retina , carbonic anhydrase , muller glia , messenger rna , carbonic anhydrase ii , microbiology and biotechnology , gene expression , embryogenesis , endocrinology , enzyme , gene , biochemistry , glutamine , embryo , neuroscience , amino acid , stem cell , progenitor cell
Glutamine synthetase (GS) is expressed in the neural retina only in Muller glia cells and is inducible with cortisol. A chicken genomic clone that contains at least part of the coding region for the GS enzyme was used to investigate developmental changes in the level of GS mRNA in embryonic chicken retina. A major GS transcript (approximately equal to 3 kilobases) detected by the probe begins to accumulate sharply on day 15 of embryonic development. When cortisol is prematurely supplied to early embryonic retina, it induces precocious accumulation of GS mRNA and of the GS enzyme. At later ages, these effects of cortisol are significantly greater, which suggests that competence to transcribe or stabilize GS mRNA in response to stimulation with cortisol increases with development. Carbonic anhydrase II (CA-II) is expressed in early retina in all the cells, but it becomes later restricted to Muller glia. Using cloned CA-II cDNA, we detected a high level of CA-II mRNA in early retina, followed by a decline due to arrest of CA-II mRNA accumulation in differentiated neurons. As glia cells mature, CA-II mRNA and the enzyme increase to a new high level. Therefore, changes in CA-II gene expression during retina development reflect differentiation-dependent cell-type-specific control of CA-II mRNA accumulation.