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An extensive genetic program occurring during postnatal growth in multiple tissues
- Source :
- Endocrinology. 150(4)
- Publication Year :
- 2008
-
Abstract
- Mammalian somatic growth is rapid in early postnatal life but then slows and eventually ceases in multiple tissues. We hypothesized that there exists a postnatal gene expression program that is common to multiple tissues and is responsible for this coordinate growth deceleration. Consistent with this hypothesis, microarray analysis identified more than 1600 genes that were regulated with age (1 vs. 4 wk) coordinately in kidney, lung, and heart of male mice, including many genes that regulate proliferation. As examples, we focused on three growth-promoting genes, Igf2, Mest, and Peg3, that were markedly down-regulated with age. In situ hybridization revealed that expression occurred in organ-specific parenchymal cells and suggested that the decreasing expression with age was due primarily to decreased expression per cell rather than a decreased number of expressing cells. The declining expression of these genes was slowed during hypothyroidism and growth inhibition (induced by propylthiouracil at 0–5 wk of age) in male rats, suggesting that the normal decline in expression is driven by growth rather than by age per se. We conclude that there exists an extensive genetic program occurring during postnatal life. Many of the involved genes are regulated coordinately in multiple organs, including many genes that regulate cell proliferation. At least some of these are themselves apparently regulated by growth, suggesting that, in the embryo, a gene expression pattern is established that allows for rapid somatic growth of multiple tissues, but then, during postnatal life, this growth leads to negative-feedback changes in gene expression that in turn slow and eventually halt somatic growth, thus imposing a fundamental limit on adult body size.
- Subjects :
- Male
medicine.medical_specialty
Somatic cell
Kruppel-Like Transcription Factors
In situ hybridization
Biology
Article
Rats, Sprague-Dawley
Mice
Endocrinology
Hypothyroidism
Insulin-Like Growth Factor II
Internal medicine
Gene expression
medicine
Animals
Humans
RNA, Messenger
Gene
In Situ Hybridization
Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis
Regulation of gene expression
Cell growth
Microarray analysis techniques
Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
Gene Expression Profiling
Computational Biology
Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental
Proteins
RNA-Binding Proteins
Rats
Gene expression profiling
Mice, Inbred C57BL
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 19457170
- Volume :
- 150
- Issue :
- 4
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Endocrinology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....9294d9258f658ec5dd56dd4d7500a481