1997 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
ANALYSIS OF GENES EXPRESSED IN PREIMPLANTATION MOUSE EMBRYOS.
| Project/Area Number |
08044221
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for international Scientific Research
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | Joint Research |
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| Research Field |
Developmental biology
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| Research Institution | SCHOOL OF MEDICINE,TOKAI UNIVERSITY |
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Principal Investigator |
KIMURA Minoru TOKAI UNIVERSITY,SCHOOL OF MEDICINE,PROFESSOR, 医学部, 教授 (10146706)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
SAKURAIN Takayuki TOKAI UNIVERSITY,SCHOOL OF MEDICINE,POST DOCTORAL FELLOW, 医学部, 奨励研究員
HWANG S.Y. The Jackson Laboratory, Research A
OH Bermseok THE JACKSON LABORATORY,RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, Research A
KNOWLES B.B. THE JACKSON LABORATORY,PROFESSOR, Professor
SOLTER Davor MAX-PLANCK-INSTITUT FUR IMMUNOBIOLOGIE,DIREKTOR, Direktor
HWANG Sue Yun THE JACKSON LABORATORY,RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
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| Project Period (FY) |
1996 – 1997
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| Keywords | mouse / early embryo / gene expression / cDNA / polyA / SSEC-D / polyA addition / maternal RNA |
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| Research Abstract |
In the past two years, the fund from this grant helps us greatly to interact with many excellent researchers in Europe and in the US,and organize very fruitful collaboration with them.
The long-term goal of the project was the understanding of regulation of gene expression in early mammalian embryos. One of the main obstacles in this field had been the difficulty in obtaining large quantity of experimental materials, and thus molecular understanding of the precess had been very limited.
In order to circumvent this obstacle, we decided to begin the collaborative research by isolating genes that are expressed in mouse early embryos. With various "state-of-art" genetic engineering techniques, we were able to construct cDNA libraries from small amounts of mouse early embryos. We then established the whole-mount in situ hybridization technique, and analyzed expression patterns of our several novel cDNAs in early embryos as well as in various mouse tissues.
Among many valuable outcomes of this
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collaboration, by far the most important findings came from the analyzes of one of the cDNA clones, called SSEC-D.Analyzes of the SSEC-D transcripts in early mouse embryos have revealed that the maternally inherited SSEC-D RNA species become significantly elongated in a stepwise fashion during the 1-2 cell embryonic stage, and then become shortened and degraded by the late 2-cell stage. The chain-length elongation of the SSEC-D RNA appears to be due to addition of extra poly A sequences (300-400 nucleotides) to the 3'-end of RNA.It is particularly intriguing that this dynamic changes of the SSEC-D transcripts are independent of (RPase II-directed) zygotic transcription, DNA replication, or even fertilization. It thus appears that the changes of the SSEC-D RNA reflect an autonomous maternal program, which continues to play roles even after fertilization. We are currently preparing to report our novel findings, and plan to extend further the analyzes to understand the biological causes and effects of this phenomenon. Less
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