| First Author | Kitamura Y | Year | 1993 |
| Journal | Exp Hematol | Volume | 21 |
| Issue | 8 | Pages | 1175 (Abstr.) |
| Mgi Jnum | J:13326 | Mgi Id | MGI:61527 |
| Citation | Kitamura Y, et al. (1993) Cell type specific and age specific suppression of c-kit gene expression in mutant mice of Wsh/Wsh genotype. Exp Hematol 21(8):1175 (Abstr.) |
| abstractText | Full text of Abstract: Growth Factors in Vivo. CELL TYPE SPECIFIC AND AGE SPECIFIC SUPPRESSION OF c-kit GENE EXPRESSION IN MUTANT MICE OF Wsh/Wsh GENOTYPE. Kitamura Y, Yamazaki M*, Nomura S*, Tsujimura T*. Department of Pathology, Osaka University Medical School, Suita, Osaka, Japan. The Wsh is a mutant allele at the W (c-kit) locus of mice. Mice of Wsh/Wsh genotype have white hairs and black eyes. Although Wsh/Wsh mouse embryos have an appreciable number of skin mast cells, the number exponentially decreased after birth. Practically adult Wsh/Wsh mice lacked skin mast cells, but they had the normal number of erythrocytes. We investigated the mechanism of specific depletion of mast cells in Wsh/Wsh mice. The c-kit messenger RNA (mRNA) was strongly expressed in cultured mast cells (CMC) derived from normal (+/+) mice but not detectable in CMC from Wsh/Wsh mice. Despite the lack of c-kit mRNA in Wsh/Wsh CMC, the c-kit mRNA was normally detectable in the cerebellum and weakly detectable in the spleen of Wsh/Wsh mice. No significant changes were found in the nucleotide sequence of the c-kit transcripts obtained from the cerebellum of Wsh/Wsh mice. The the c-kit gene expression was investigated in skin mast cells; the c-kit mRNA was detected by in-situ hybridization and the c-kit protein by immunohistochemistry. Although the number of alcian blue-positive mast cells in the skin of Wsh/Wsh embryos was 37% that of +/+ embryos, the number of c-kit protein-expressing mast cells was 8% and that of c-kit mRNA-expressing mast cells 4%. The c-kit mRNA-expressing cells were hardly detectable in the skin suckling Wsh/Wsh mice of 5 days of age. The decrease of c-kit mRNA-expressing mast cells was followed by the decrease of the c-kit protein-expressing mast cells and that of the alcian blue-positive mast cells. The present result showed that the c-kit gene expression was suppressed not only in CMC derived from Wsh/Wsh mice but also in mast cells in tissues of Wsh/Wsh mice and suggested the presence of both cell type specific and age specific regulation of c-kit gene transcription. |
