Lim1 has been reported to regulate the head, nerve system and kidney development in mouse, zebrafish and Xenopus. In the present study, we demonstrate that Xlim1 plays a pivotal role in the pronephric specification and development in Xenopus.
In Xenopus embryos at 4-cell and 8-cell stage, loss of function experiments using DEED depletion showed that down-regulation of Xlim1 expression severely impairs the formation of pronephros, assessed by pax8 expression. Overexpressing Xlim1 by injecting constitutively active Lim1 constructs in Xenopus embryos induce remarking enlargement of pronephros at various stages during development, assessed by both in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry staining. Furthermore we studied the working window of Xlim1 on pronephric specification in mesoderm and observed the peak time point is at stage 10.5 while the whole working window is between stage 9 and 12.5. To understand the mechanism of Xlim1s regulation in kidney development, then we performed the microarray analysis on the induced pronephric RNA sample extracted from animal caps, targeting couple of genes that either are the members involved in the lim1 pathway or in the networking that induce the pronephric specification.
In summary, our data suggest that Lim1 acts as a potent factor that determines the early specification of pronephros. Its expression levels at the early stage critically influences the specification of the pronephric tubules. More knowledge about XLim1s pathway in kidney development will be studied via examining the gene targets screened from microarray analysis.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-06092008-153129 |
| Date | 30 June 2008 |
| Creators | Ye, Mao |
| Contributors | Dr. Neil Hukriede, Dr.Thomas Smithgall, Dr. Martin Schimdt |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-06092008-153129/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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