Li Guiqiang, Li Meili, Fang Wei, Wang Wei, He Yu, Song Xiaoguang, Xu Yinxue
College of Animal Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China.
Sheng Wu Gong Cheng Xue Bao. 2009 Aug;25(8):1130-7.
Newborn ovary homeobox gene (NOBOX) is an oocyte-specific homeobox gene that plays a critical role in early folliculogenesis and represents a candidate gene for nonsyndromic ovarian failure. We used in silico approach in combination with rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) to clone the full-length cDNA of NOBOX (GenBank Accession No. FJ587509) from porcine oocytes. It contains 1768 bp nucleotides, with an open reading frame (ORF) of 1419 bp. The putative porcine NOBOX gene encodes 472 amino acids with the molecular weight of 51.08 kD and pI of 5.73. Bioinformatics prediction indicates that this protein contains a cd00086 homeodomain. Real-time PCR analysis showed that the NOBOX gene is expressed in various tissues, oocytes and embryos cells (4-cell, 8-cell, morula and blastocyst) at different expression levels. The expression levels of this gene in heart, kidney and oocytes are higher than that in other tissues, which suggested that the NOBOX protein might play an important role in those tissues. The expression of NOBOX in developmental stages is higher than that in GV-stage oocytes, which suggested that the expression of pNOBOX was enhanced in developmental stages.
新生儿卵巢同源盒基因（NOBOX）是一种卵母细胞特异性同源盒基因，在早期卵泡发生中起关键作用，是散发性卵巢功能不全的候选基因。我们采用电子克隆方法结合cDNA末端快速扩增技术（RACE）从猪卵母细胞中克隆出NOBOX的全长cDNA（GenBank登录号：FJ587509）。它包含1768个碱基对，开放阅读框（ORF）为1419个碱基对。推测的猪NOBOX基因编码472个氨基酸，分子量为51.08 kD，等电点为5.73。生物信息学预测表明该蛋白含有一个cd00086同源结构域。实时PCR分析表明，NOBOX基因在各种组织、卵母细胞和胚胎细胞（4细胞、8细胞、桑葚胚和囊胚）中均有表达，但表达水平不同。该基因在心脏、肾脏和卵母细胞中的表达水平高于其他组织，这表明NOBOX蛋白可能在这些组织中发挥重要作用。NOBOX在发育阶段的表达高于GV期卵母细胞，这表明pNOBOX在发育阶段的表达增强。
