Developmental expression of Mab21l2 during mouse embryogenesis

mab-21 has been identified as a critical component required for sensory org an identity establishment in Caenorhabditis elegans. [Chow, K.L., Emmons, S .W., 1994. Development 120, 2579-2592; Chow, E.L., Hall, D.H., Emmons, S.W. , 1995. Development 121, 3615-3625]. Human and mouse homologs of this gene have been isolated and their transcripts are predominantly detected in the eye and cerebellum [Margolis, R.L., Stine, O.C., McInnis, M.G., et al., 199 6. Hum. Mel. Genet 5, 607-616; Mariani, M., Conadi, A., Baldessari, D., et al., 1998. Mech. Dev. 79, 131-135]. We report here the expression profile o f a second murine mab-21 homolog, Mab21/2 [Wong, R.L.Y., Wong, H.T., Chow, K.L., 1999. Cyto. Cell Genet., in press]. Whole mount in situ hybridization data from embryonic day 8.5 to day 15 revealed that Mab21/2 expression pat terns partially overlapped with that of Mab21/1. In addition, its strong ex pression in the mid- and hindbrain, otic vesicle, optic vesicle, maxillary and mandibular process, paraxial mesoderm, dorsal midline, limb bud and dev eloping digits suggest that Mab21/2 has more diverse functions in vertebrat e development. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.