The International Journal of Developmental Biology

Int. J. Dev. Biol. 59: 235 - 240 (2015)

https://doi.org/10.1387/ijdb.140275ma

Vol 59, Issue 4-5-6

Comparative expression analysis of pfdn6a and tcp1α during Xenopus development

Developmental Expression Pattern | Published: 15 October 2015

Silvia Marracci1, Davide Martini1, Martina Giannaccini1,2, Guido Giudetti1, Luciana Dente1 and Massimiliano Andreazzoli*,1

1Unità di Biologia Cellulare e dello Sviluppo, Dipartimento di Biologia, Università di Pisa and 2Istituto di Scienze della Vita, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy

Abstract

We recently identified pfdn6a and tcp1α (also known as cct-α) as genes coregulated by the transcription factor Rx1. The proteins encoded by these genes belong to two interacting complexes (Prefoldin and “chaperonin containing t-complex polypeptide 1”), which promote the folding of actin and tubulin and have more recently been reported to be involved in a variety of additional functions including cell cycle control and transcription regulation. However, little is known about the expression and function of these two genes during vertebrate development. To assess whether pfdn6a and tcp1α display a general coordinated expression during Xenopus development, we determined, by RT-PCR and in situ hybridization, the spatio-temporal expression pattern of pfnd6a, which was not previously described, and compared it to that of tcp1α, extending the analysis to stages not previously investigated for this gene. We detected maternal transcripts of pfnd6a in the animal hemisphere at early blastula stage. During gastrulation, pfdn6a was expressed in the involuting mesoderm and subsequently in the anterior and dorsal neural plate. At tailbud and tadpole stages, pfdn6a RNA was mainly detected in the forebrain, midbrain, eye vesicle, otic vesicle, branchial arches, and developing pronephros. The pfnd6a expression pattern largely overlaps with that of tcp1α indicating a spatio-temporal transcriptional coregulation of these genes in the majority of their expression sites, which is suggestive of a possible involvement in the same developmental events.

Keywords

pfdn6, hke2, tcp1, cct, Xenopus embryogenesis

Full text in web format is not available for this article. Please download the PDF version.