Investigating the role of the sterol-responsive element-binding proteins 2 (SREBP2) during islet development
The major function of the sterol-responsive element-binding proteins 2 (SREBP2) is regulating Cholesterol biosynthesis. Cholesterol is important component of the cell membrane, works as signaling molecules and is essential to maintain cellular function. In this project we analyze how SREBP2 regulates islet function and analyze the gene expression profiling related with islet function, structure and adhesion. We selective ablate the sterol-responsive element-binding proteins 2 (SREBP2) in endocrine cells of murine pancreas. Pancreas mRNA profiles of 8-weeks old wild type (WT) and Ngn3-Cre; Srebf2 flox/flox mice. We mapped about 70 million sequence reads per mouse sample. Our results showed that 25 genes were upregulated and 196 were downregulated by SREBP2 ablation. Overall design: Total RNA was extracted from pancreatic islets isolated from 8 weeks old mice of Ngn3-Cre; Ctnna1flox/flox and Wild-type controls. There were four animals for each group.