Cloning, Expression And Fuctional Studies Of Zebrafish DRG1 And DRG2 Genes

(1)G proteins represent a diverse superfamily of regulatory molecules including at least three subfamilies: the large, heterotrimeric G proteins (e.g. transducin), the small, monomeric G proteins (e.g. Ras) and the GTPases involved in proteinsynthesis (e.g. EF-Tu). All these proteins can bind GTP and GDP, the active form regulates many cellular events, including cytoskeletal rearrangements (Rho), protein proteins translation (EF-Tu), mitogenesis (Ras) and receptor-mediated communication (heterotrimeric). Developmentally regulated GTP-binding protein is a novel group of G proteins that has been identified recently. These proteins harbor the five characteristic regions G1-G5 that are believed to play a role in the interaction with GTP. Apart from their size, they do not display significant similarity with the well-characterized G-proteins. DRG genes show a wide variety of expression patterns in animals, Drosophila DRG accumulates at similar levels in adult tissues, embryos and cultured cells. In Xenopus, DRG transcripts generally increase in abundance during embryonic development and are more abundant in the developing brain than in other organs. Mouse DRG mRNA is also expressed at high levels in brain. These results suggest a role for DRG in animal neural development. Their function is still unknown but their high degree of conservation suggests that they play an essential role in the control of cell growth and differentiation.In this report, we demonstrate that zebrafish genome possess two closely related DRG genes, DRG1 and DRG2. Through Whole-mount in situ hybridization and RT-PCR analysis, the two DRG genes gave a similar expression pattern at the embryo development stage. The anti-sense riboprobes gave intense ubiquitous staining at the cleavage stage (Data not shown), blastula stage (30% epiboly) and segmentation stage (10-somite) confirming both maternal and zygotic expression of DRG. At the...