Dowling A L, Zoeller R T
Biology Department and Molecular and Cellular Biology Program, Morrill Science Center, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA.
Brain Res Mol Brain Res. 2000 Oct 20;82(1-2):126-32. doi: 10.1016/s0169-328x(00)00190-x.
Recent clinical studies indicate that thyroid hormone plays essential roles in fetal brain development. However, the mechanism by which thyroid hormone affects fetal brain development is poorly studied. We recently identified several genes expressed in the fetal cortex whose abundance is affected by thyroid hormone of maternal origin. However, it is unclear whether these genes are directly regulated by thyroid hormone. Because these are the first genes known to be regulated by thyroid hormone during fetal development, we sought to expand our investigation to genes known to be regulated directly by thyroid hormone. We now report that the well-known thyroid hormone-responsive gene RC3/neurogranin is expressed in the fetal brain and is regulated by thyroid hormone of maternal origin. These findings support the concept that maternal thyroid hormone exerts a direct action on the expression of genes in the fetal brain that are important for normal neurological development.
近期的临床研究表明，甲状腺激素在胎儿大脑发育中起着至关重要的作用。然而，甲状腺激素影响胎儿大脑发育的机制却鲜有研究。我们最近在胎儿皮质中鉴定出了几个基因，其丰度受母体来源的甲状腺激素影响。然而，尚不清楚这些基因是否直接受甲状腺激素调控。由于这些是已知在胎儿发育过程中受甲状腺激素调控的首批基因，我们试图将研究扩展至已知直接受甲状腺激素调控的基因。我们现在报告，著名的甲状腺激素反应基因RC3/神经颗粒蛋白在胎儿大脑中表达，并受母体来源的甲状腺激素调控。这些发现支持了这样一种观点，即母体甲状腺激素对胎儿大脑中对正常神经发育至关重要的基因表达具有直接作用。
