Research: More on synuclein

[Guest guest]

Mech Dev

2000 Dec 1;99(1-2):195-198

Chicken synucleins: cloning and expression in the developing embryo.

Tiunova AA, Anokhin KV, Saha AR, Schmidt O, Hanger DP, Anderton BH,

Davies AM,

Ninkina NN, Buchman VL

P.K. Anokhin Institute of Normal Physiology, Baltyiskaya Street, Moscow,

Russia

[Record supplied by publisher]

Synucleins comprise a family of small intracellular proteins that have

recently

attracted considerable attention because of their involvement in human

diseases.

Mutations of alpha-synuclein has been found in several families with

hereditary

early-onset Parkinson's disease and accumulation of this protein in

characteristic cytoplasmic inclusions is a pathohistological hallmark of

several

neurodegenerative diseases that have been recently classified as

'alpha;-synucleinopathies' (reviewed in Brain Res. Bull. 50 (1999) 465;

J.

Neurosci. Res. 58 (1999) 120; Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. Biol. Sci.

354 (1999)

1101; Brain Pathol. 9 (1999) 733). Aggregates of beta-synuclein and

persyn

(gamma-synuclein) also have been found in dystrophic neurites associated

with

Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.

USA 96

(1999) 13450; and our unpublished observations). Moreover, persyn has

been

implicated in malignization of breast tumours (Cancer Res. 57 (1997)

759; Cancer

Res. 59 (1999) 742; Hum. Mol. Genet. 7 (1998) 1417). All synucleins have

distinct, although overlapping, patterns of expression in the embryonic,

postnatal and adult mammalian nervous systems, suggesting important,

although

still not clear, biological functions in neuronal developing. Chicken

embryo is

a unique object for developmental studies that allows in vivo

manipulations not

always possible for mammalian embryos. Studies of synucleins expression

in this

model system could shed light on their functions in the developing

nervous

system. We cloned three chicken synucleins from the embryonic neural

cDNA

libraries and studied their expression in normal chicken embryonic

tissues by

Northern and in situ hybridization with specific probes. Our results

demonstrate

that primary structures and expression patterns of synucleins are

similar in

birds and mammals, suggesting that conserved function of synucleins is

important

for embryonic development of vertebrates.

PMID: 11091093