Toyoda H, Komurasaki T, Ikeda Y, Yoshimoto M, Morimoto S
Molecular Biology Laboratory, Taisho Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Saitama, Japan.
FEBS Lett. 1995 Dec 27;377(3):403-7. doi: 10.1016/0014-5793(95)01403-9.
A cDNA clone encoding a novel epidermal growth factor (EGF)-related growth regulator, epiregulin, was isolated from a cDNA library prepared from a mouse fibroblast-derived tumor cell line, NIH3T3/clone T7. The predicted amino acid sequence revealed that the purified epiregulin peptide of 46-amino acids was synthesized as an internal segment of a 162-amino acid putative transmembrane precursor. The structural organization was similar to that of TGF-alpha precursor among the members of the EGF family. Although epiregulin transcript was not detected in several adult normal tissues by Northern blot analysis, approximately 4.8-kb transcript was present in 7-day-old mouse embryo and then diminished to very low or undetectable levels. Our results suggest that epiregulin may play an important role in the regulation of epithelial cell growth during early development.
从由小鼠成纤维细胞衍生的肿瘤细胞系NIH3T3/克隆T7构建的cDNA文库中分离出一个编码新型表皮生长因子（EGF）相关生长调节因子——表皮调节素的cDNA克隆。预测的氨基酸序列显示，纯化的46个氨基酸的表皮调节素肽是作为一个162个氨基酸的推定跨膜前体的内部片段合成的。其结构组织与EGF家族成员中的TGF-α前体相似。尽管通过Northern印迹分析在几种成年正常组织中未检测到表皮调节素转录本，但在7日龄小鼠胚胎中存在约4.8kb的转录本，然后降至非常低或无法检测的水平。我们的结果表明，表皮调节素可能在早期发育过程中上皮细胞生长的调节中起重要作用。
