Glomerulus-specific mRNA transcripts and proteins identified through kidney expressed sequence tag database analysis

The kidney glomerulus plays a crucial role in blood filtration but the molecular composition and physiology of the glomerulus is not well understood. We previously constructed and large-scale sequenced four mouse glomerular expressed sequence tag (EST) libraries from newborn and adult mouse glomeruli. Here, we compared glomerular EST profiles with whole kidney EST profiles, thereby identifying 497 transcripts corresponding to UniGene clusters that were glomerulus-enriched, that is expressed more abundantly in glomeruli than in whole kidney. These include several known protein-coding glomerulus-specific transcripts critical for glomerulus development and function, but also a large number of gene transcripts, which have not previously been shown to be expressed in the glomerulus, or implicated in glomerular functions. We used in situ hybridization to demonstrate glomerulus-specific RNA expression for six novel glomerular genes and the public Human Protein Atlas to verify glomerular protein expression for another two. The higher mRNA abundance for the eight genes in glomeruli compared with whole kidney was also verified by Taqman quantitative polymerase chain reaction. We surmise that the further characterization of these genes and proteins will increase our understanding of glomerular development and physiology.