Activin receptor mRNA expression by neurons of the avian ciliary ganglion

✍ Scribed by Kos, Ksenija ;Coulombe, James N.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 447 KB
• Volume: 32
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-3034
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-4695(199701)32:1<33::aid-neu4>3.0.co;2-f

✦ Synopsis

Previous studies have suggested strand digoxigenin-labeled riboprobe complimentary that activin may serve as a neurodifferentiation factor to a 358-bp portion of the cActR-IIA kinase region regulating somatostatin expression in neurons of the avian ciliary ganglion (CG). As one aspect of examinhybridized to cells within cryostat sections of embrying the role of activin in CG development, we inquired onic CG. From E6.5-E18, hybridization of this probe whether any of the known activin receptors are exappears to be specific for cells with a neuronal morpressed by developing CG neurons in vivo. In addition, phology. Using rtPCR with activin A-specific primers we examined whether activin A mRNA is expressed we detected activin mRNA in the choroid layer of E14 in the choroid layer and iris of the chicken eye. Oligoand E19 eyes, and from the iris at E14. Our results nucleotide primers were designed for the chicken acare consistent with a role for activin as a neurodiffertivin receptor type IIA (cActR-IIA), type IIB (cActRentiation factor in vivo, and imply that within the CG, IIB), and activin A. In reverse-transcription-polythe cActR-IIA is specifically expressed by neurons, merase chain reaction (rtPCR), an appropriately and that activin A is expressed in the targets of these sized product was amplified from CG cDNA using neurons. ᭧ 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Neurobiol 32: 33- primers to the cActR-IIA but not the cActR-IIB. Se-44, 1997. quencing confirmed the identity of the PCR product Keywords: activin; activin receptor; ciliary ganglion; as a fragment of the cActR-IIA. It thus appears that chicken embryo; in situ hybridization. mRNA for the type IIA but not the type IIB activin