| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,600,000)
Fiscal Year 2003: ¥1,700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000)
Fiscal Year 2002: ¥1,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,900,000)
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| Research Abstract |
Recently, we succeeded the expression of a murine odorant receptor (OR) gene, M0R28 with the YAC transgenic system (Nat. Neurosci. 3, 687, 2000). Genome analysis has revealed that a 1.8 kb DNA region 68 kb upstream of the mouse M0R28 gene is highly homologous to the sequence 32 kb upstream of the human ortholog H0R28 (Gene 292, 73, 2002). This homologous region may contain a cis-acting regulatory element necessary for the expression of the M0R28 cluster indicated by our deletion studies with the transgenic mice.
To better understand how the olfactory sensory, map is organized, we analyzed individual glomeruli for OR mRNA species transported through the axons of olfactory neurons. Using the laser micro-dissection method against olfactory bulb sections, we have found that the OR mRNA molecules, isolated from glomeruli adjacent to the projection sites for the zone 4 OR, MOR28, do not always share high sequence similarities. In situ hybridization of olfactory epithelium (OE) sections revealed that the OR genes whose mRNAs are detected in the adjacent glomeruli tend to be expressed in the same restricted area within zone 4, even when the OR sequences are not similar (Tsuboi, et al. submitted).
To study the functional significance of the zonal structure of the OE, we searched for genes expressed in a zone-specific manner by using the differential display method. Among the clones isolated from the rat OE, we characterized a novel olfactory protein, termed 0-MACS, which is specifically expressed in the OE unlike other medium-chain acyl-CoA synthetase family proteins. This study indicates that this novel protein may play important roles in processing odorants in a zone-specific manner, or the zonal patterning of the OE during development (Eur. J. Bichem. 270,1995, 2003).
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