EXPRESSION OF DEOXYURIDINE TRIPHOSPHATASE DURING LIVER-REGENERATION IN RAT

Deoxyuridine triphosphatase (dUTPase) activity increases concomitantly with DNA replication in the course of liver regeneration in rat. We c onfirmed in this report using Western blot analysis and Northern blot hybridization that the increase of dUTPase activity was derived from e xpression of the gene. The content of dUTPase protein quantitatively c oincided with the activity, they reached to the maximum at about 24h a fter partial hepatectomy. We also detected a transcript (1.0 kb) presu med to be a rat spleen dUTPase mRNA by the human dUTPase cDNA probe. T his transcript appeared in the liver after a lag of about 16h, reached to the maximum at 24h, and could be detected until 48h after partial hepatectomy. The increase of this transcript nearly coincided with the changes of dUTPase activity and the quantity of enzyme protein. These results indicated that the expression of dUTPase gene is related to t he DNA replication.