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Conserved and divergent expression patterns of the proteolipid protein gene family in the amphibian central nervous system
Author(s) -
Yoshida Mika,
Shan WeiSong,
Colman David R.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of neuroscience research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.72
H-Index - 160
eISSN - 1097-4547
pISSN - 0360-4012
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-4547(19990701)57:1<13::aid-jnr2>3.0.co;2-e
Subject(s) - xenopus , biology , proteolipid protein 1 , myelin proteolipid protein , gene , gene expression , myelin , central nervous system , messenger rna , genetics , microbiology and biotechnology , myelin basic protein , neuroscience
The recent discovery of a proteolipid protein gene family has revealed that its members are in fact widely distributed and are not exclusively associated with myelination. To date, three different gene products, DMα/DM‐20/PLP, DMβ/M6a, and DMγ/M6b, have been isolated from certain primitive fish species, mouse, and human central nervous system (CNS). We cloned Xenopus laevis orthologues of DMβ/M6a and DMγ/M6b and investigated the expression patterns of these gene transcripts as well as that of PLP in developing Xenopus CNS. As is the case in shark and mouse, the mRNA encoding the major myelin integral protein, PLP, is first detected at stage 42/43 in tadpoles and is exclusively found in morphologically recognizable oligodendrocytes throughout the brain, while DMβ mRNA is solely expressed in young presumptive neurons in the gray matter. There exist two distinct DMγ mRNAs and, in contrast to these evolutionarily conserved expression patterns, DMγ mRNAs distribute uniquely within the ventricular zone in young tadpoles (stage 25) through maturity. Furthermore, both DMβ and DMγ are expressed in the developing retina, and their distributions are different from one other. In Xenopus CNS, therefore, the expression patterns of three proteolipid proteins, PLP, DMβ, and DMγ, are distinct from each other, implying very different roles for their protein products within the cell populations in which they are expressed. J. Neurosci. Res. 57:13–22, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.