title: Identification and gene expression profiling of the Pum1 and Pum2 members of the Pumilio family in the chicken.
abstract: Members of the Pumilio (Pum) family of RNA-binding proteins act as translational repressors and are required for germ cell development and asymmetric division. We identified the chicken Pum1 and Pum2 genes and analyzed their expression patterns in various tissues. Comparative sequence analysis of the Pum1 and Pum2 proteins from the drosophila, chicken, mouse, and human revealed a high degree of evolutionary conservation in terms of the levels of homology of the peptide sequences and the structure of Pumilio homology domain (PUM-HD), C-terminal RNA-binding domain, with similar spacing between the adjacent Pum eight tandem repeats. In addition, phylogenetic patterns of pumilio family showed that Pum 1 and 2 of chicken are more closely related to those of mouse and human than other species and Pum1 is more conserved than Pum2. Using real-time RT-PCR, the expression levels of the Pum1 and Pum2 genes were found to be highest in hatched female gonads, and high-level expression of Pum2 was detected in 12-day and hatched gonads among the various chicken embryonic tissues tested. In adult tissues, the expression levels of Pum1 and Pum2 were expressed at higher levels in the testis and muscle than in any other tissue. The characteristics of the tissue-specific expression of Pum genes suggest that Pum1 and Pum2 have effects crucially in particular stage during development of chicken gonads depending on sexual maturation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Division of Animal Genetic Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Jee Young
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Jeong Mook
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.forename: Duk Kyung
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Ying Hui
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Sunjin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Moon
authors.forename: Beom Ku
authors.initials: BK
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Ki Duk
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: Heebal
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Jae Yong
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Han
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D030161:Avian Proteins / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D002642:Chick Embryo; D002645:Chickens / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development; D015870:Gene Expression; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D006066:Gonads / Q000196:embryology* / Q000378:metabolism; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D016601:RNA-Binding Proteins / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D030161:Avian Proteins; D016601:RNA-Binding Proteins