Mishima Noboru, Hoffman Stanley
Division of Rheumatology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina 29425, USA.
Anat Rec A Discov Mol Cell Evol Biol. 2003 Jun;272(2):556-62. doi: 10.1002/ar.a.10067.
The chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan (CSPG) neurocan was previously considered to be nervous-system specific. However, we have found neurocan in the embryonic heart and vasculature. In stage 11 quail embryos, neurocan was prominently expressed in the myocardium, dorsal mesocardium, heart-forming fields, splanchnic mesoderm, and vicinity of the extraembryonic vaculature, and at lower levels in the endocardium. A comparison of neurocan staining with QH1 staining of vascular endothelial cells demonstrates that neurocan is frequently expressed by cells adjacent to endothelial cells, rather than by endothelial cells themselves. In some cases, a dispersed subset of cells are neurocan-positive in a field of cells that otherwise appear uniform in morphology. Later in development, neurocan expression becomes relatively limited to the nervous system. However, even in 10-day embryos, neurocan is expressed in the chorio-allantoic membrane in the tissue that separates closely packed, small-diameter blood vessels. In summary, our results suggest that neurocan may function as a barrier that regulates vascular patterning during development.
硫酸软骨素蛋白聚糖（CSPG）神经蛋白聚糖以前被认为是神经系统特异性的。然而，我们在胚胎心脏和脉管系统中发现了神经蛋白聚糖。在第11期鹌鹑胚胎中，神经蛋白聚糖在心肌、背侧心内膜、心脏形成区、脏壁中胚层和胚外脉管系统附近显著表达，而在内皮中表达水平较低。将神经蛋白聚糖染色与血管内皮细胞的QH1染色进行比较表明，神经蛋白聚糖通常由与内皮细胞相邻的细胞表达，而不是由内皮细胞自身表达。在某些情况下，在形态上看似均匀的细胞区域中，有一部分分散的细胞呈神经蛋白聚糖阳性。在发育后期，神经蛋白聚糖的表达相对局限于神经系统。然而，即使在10天大的胚胎中，神经蛋白聚糖仍在紧密排列的小直径血管之间的组织中的绒毛尿囊膜中表达。总之，我们的结果表明，神经蛋白聚糖可能作为一种屏障在发育过程中调节血管模式。
