M. Taoka et al., MURINE CEREBELLAR NEURONS EXPRESS A NOVEL GENE ENCODING A PROTEIN RELATED TO CELL-CYCLE CONTROL AND CELL FATE DETERMINATION PROTEINS, The Journal of biological chemistry, 269(13), 1994, pp. 9946-9951
We cloned cDNAs of a novel protein (designated V-1) that has been iden
tified from among the developmentally regulated proteins in the rat ce
rebellum. Protein sequencing analysis (Taoka, M., Yamakuni, T., Song,
S.-Y., Yamakawa, Y., Seta, K., Okuyama, T., and Isobe, T. (1992) Eur.
J. Biochem. 207, 615-620) and cDNA sequence analysis revealed that the
V-1 protein consists of 117 amino acids and contains 2.5 contiguous r
epeats of the cdc10/SWI6 motif, which was originally found in the prod
ucts of the cell cycle control genes of yeasts and the cell fate deter
mination genes in Drosophila and Caenorhabditis elegans. In situ hybri
dization histochemistry revealed that the expression of the V-1 gene i
s transiently increased in postmigratory granule cells during postnata
l rat cerebellar development and thereafter is markedly suppressed, wh
ereas Purkinje cells constitutively express V-1 mRNA. In contrast, cer
ebellar granule cells of the staggerer mutant mouse continue to expres
s the V-1 gene even when the granule cells of the normal mouse have ce
ased to express the V-1 gene, suggesting that the expression of the V-
1 gene in granule cells is regulated through the interaction with Purk
inje cells. On the basis of these results, we postulate that the V-1 p
rotein has a potential role in the differentiation of granule cells.