DIFFERENTIAL
EXPRESSION OF THE ALPHA-ACTIN GENE IN NEURAL CREST ABLATED CHICK EMBRYO
Chen SB, Liu F, Gu XF
Dept of Pediaric
Cardiology, Xinhau Hospital,
Shanghai Children's
Medical Center, Shanghai, China
Objective: Hemodynamic
abnormalities in the chick embryo have been documented after neural crest
ablation. Ventricular dilation may contribute to malformation of outflow
tract. To explore the relation of neural crest ablation to depressed
contractility, suppression subtractive hybridization was used to discover
messages decreased or no expressing in outflow tract tissues with or witout
cardiac neural crest cells.
Methods: Cardiac neural crest
was ablated by electric stimulation in 51 chick embryos, 48 chick embryos
were as control. A subtractive library was constructed, and cDNA array was
used to identify significant difference, then sequencing was done.
Results: 261 clones were
constructed, 83/261 clones were identified to be significantly decreased or
no expressed by cDNA array. 68 clones were sequenced, 18 kinds of cDNA
fragments were identified. 7/68 were known as Gallus cardiac Alpha-actin
gene.
Conclusion:
Ablation of cardiac neural crest could cause decreased expression of
cardiac Alpha-actin gene which might be responsible for depressed contractility.