Min Chen, Min He, Kemei Peng, Ke Xiao, Haibo Huang, Daiyun Zhu, Xinting Zheng
College of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, Hubei, PR China; Xinyang College of Agriculture and Forestry, Xinyang 464000, Henan, PR China.
Xinyang College of Agriculture and Forestry, Xinyang 464000, Henan, PR China.
Acta Histochem. 2014 Jan;116(1):191-6. doi: 10.1016/j.acthis.2013.07.004. Epub 2013 Jul 31.
The thymus in addition to being a central lymphoid organ is also an endocrine organ which produces various neuropeptides that influence the function of this gland. Somatostatin is a neuropeptide that was isolated initially in the hypothalamus and which inhibits the release of growth hormone. The distribution of somatostatin-producing cells and the sequence of somatostatin have been determined in many species. In the present study, we investigated the expression of somatostatin in the thymus of the African ostrich and its sequence by reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemistry. The results showed that somatostatin mRNA was expressed in the thymus and somatostatin immunoreative cells were distributed in both the cortical and medullary regions of the thymus. Results of cDNA cloning revealed that the nucleotide sequence and the encoded protein of African ostrich somatostatin were 348 bases and 116 amino acids in length and that it is highly conserved to that of other reported species. These findings indicated that the somatostatin expressed in the thymus of ostrich might play an important role in the function of the gland. In addition, this research has provided novel molecular data allowing further study of somatostatin in the ostrich.
胸腺除了是一个中枢淋巴器官外，还是一个内分泌器官，它能产生多种影响该腺体功能的神经肽。生长抑素是一种最初在下丘脑中分离出来的神经肽，它能抑制生长激素的释放。在许多物种中，已经确定了产生生长抑素的细胞分布和生长抑素的序列。在本研究中，我们通过逆转录聚合酶链反应和免疫组织化学方法，研究了非洲鸵鸟胸腺中生长抑素的表达及其序列。结果表明，生长抑素mRNA在胸腺中表达，生长抑素免疫反应性细胞分布于胸腺的皮质和髓质区域。cDNA克隆结果显示，非洲鸵鸟生长抑素的核苷酸序列和编码蛋白长度分别为348个碱基和116个氨基酸，并且与其他已报道物种的高度保守。这些发现表明，鸵鸟胸腺中表达的生长抑素可能在腺体功能中发挥重要作用。此外，本研究提供了新的分子数据，有助于进一步研究鸵鸟体内的生长抑素。
