A comparative gene expression profile of the whole eye from human, mouse, and guinea pig.
OBJECTIVE
To characterize and compare gene expression patterns of the whole eyeball among human, mouse, and guinea pig based on expressed sequence tags (ESTs).


METHODS
Approximately 10,000 clones were sequenced from the 5'-end for each cDNA library made from mRNAs isolated from whole eyeballs of human, mouse, and guinea pig. ESTs were assembled and analyzed based on standard methods.


RESULTS
We acquired 31,464 high-quality ESTs including 9,949 for the human, 11,495 for the mouse, and 10,020 for the guinea pig cDNA libraries, which were clustered into 12,253 unigenes for all three species. After removal of non-mRNA contaminations, we were able to match 96%, 97%, and 63% of the human, mouse, and guinea pig unigenes to sequences in the nonredundant library in GenBank, respectively. The high-abundance and medium-abundance genes in each library correlate with the anatomic structure and physiologic function of the eye in the three species. The large contribution from the lens in the mouse was related to the abundance of crystallin. Differentially expressed genes were observed among three libraries. Some of them appeared species-specific.


CONCLUSIONS
According to their gene expression patterns, guinea pig and human eyes are more similar compared to those of the mouse, making the guinea pig a promising animal model for eye research.
Zhou
Xiangtian
X
School of Ophthalmology and Optometry, Eye Hospital, Wenzhou Medical College, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, China.
Wang
Weiwei
W
Lu
Fan
F
Hu
Songnian
S
Jiang
Liqin
L
Yan
Dongsheng
D
Zhang
Xiaowei
X
Yu
Xiaomin
X
Yu
Jun
J
Qu
Jia
J
D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D030562:Databases, Protein; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D005123:Eye / Q000378:metabolism*; D005136:Eye Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D015723:Gene Library; D006168:Guinea Pigs; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
D005136:Eye Proteins