Kim C H, Taira E, Kuo C H, Li B S, Okamoto H, Nakahira K, Ikenaka K, Higuchi H, Miki N
Department of Pharmacology, Osaka University School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan.
Neurochem Res. 1996 Feb;21(2):231-7. doi: 10.1007/BF02529139.
Gicerin, a novel cell adhesion molecule which belongs to the immunoglobulin superfamily, is expressed temporally and spatially in the developing chick brain and retina. The previous in vitro experiments using transfected cells showed that gicerin can function as a cell adhesion molecule which has both homophilic and heterophilic binding activities. For the in vivo analyses of gicerin in neural development, we tried to utilize a zebrafish system, a vertebrate suitable for studying early development. We generated transient transgenic animals by microinjecting DNA constructs into zebrafish embryos. Chicken gicerin, under control of the neurofilament gene promoter, was preferentially expressed in neuronal cells and gicerin-expressing neurons exhibited a fasciculation formation with neighboring gicerin-positive axons, which may be partly due to homophilic cell adhesion activity of gicerin. These experimental results suggest that this fast and efficient transgenic animal system is useful for studying the functional roles of neuron-specific genes during the development.
吉塞林是一种属于免疫球蛋白超家族的新型细胞粘附分子，在发育中的鸡脑和视网膜中具有时空表达。先前使用转染细胞进行的体外实验表明，吉塞林可作为一种具有同源和异源结合活性的细胞粘附分子发挥作用。为了在神经发育过程中对吉塞林进行体内分析，我们尝试利用斑马鱼系统，这是一种适合研究早期发育的脊椎动物。我们通过将DNA构建体显微注射到斑马鱼胚胎中产生了瞬时转基因动物。在神经丝基因启动子的控制下，鸡吉塞林在神经元细胞中优先表达，并且表达吉塞林的神经元与相邻的吉塞林阳性轴突形成了束状结构，这可能部分归因于吉塞林的同源细胞粘附活性。这些实验结果表明，这种快速有效的转基因动物系统对于研究发育过程中神经元特异性基因的功能作用很有用。
