title: Molecular characterization of the Neuronatin gene in the porcine placenta.
abstract: Imprinted genes play important roles in placental and embryonic development. Neuronatin (NNAT), first identified as an imprinted gene in human and mouse brains, played important roles in neuronal differentiation in the brain and in glucose-mediated insulin secretion in pancreatic β cells. In the pig, NNAT was reported to be imprinted in eleven tissues. Our previous microarray hybridization study showed that NNAT was differentially expressed in Yorkshire and Meishan pig placentas, but the imprinting status and function of NNAT in the placenta have not been investigated. We demonstrated for the first time that NNAT was monoallelically expressed in the placenta. Immunochemistry analysis showed that NNAT was located in the uterine luminal and glandular epithelium in placentas. We also confirmed the differential expression of NNAT in Meishan and Yorkshire pig placentas by qPCR. Using IPA software and the published literature, we created a model network of the possible relationships between NNAT and glucose transporter genes. A dual luciferase reporter assay demonstrated that the crucial promoter region of NNAT contained a CANNTG sequence in the +210 to +215 positions, which corresponded to the E-box. Our findings demonstrated important roles of NNAT in placenta function.
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Agricultural Animal Genetics, Breeding, and Reproduction of Ministry of Education and Key Laboratory of Swine Genetics and Breeding of Ministry of Agriculture, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Ting
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.forename: Xi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Su
authors.forename: Quanyong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Xinyun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Mei
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.forename: Shuhong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Changchun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D018392:Genomic Imprinting; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D010920:Placenta / Q000378:metabolism*; D011247:Pregnancy; D013552:Swine
chemical_list: D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins