Mterfd2 Expression Profile And Preliminary Study Of Its Regulation Mechanism And Bio-Function

Numerous differentially expressed genes were found through microarray analysis on E12.5 parthenogenetic and normal embryos, including MTERF domain containing 2 (Mterfd2 or MTERF4) in this paper. To date, there is no detailed report on gene expression profile of this gene. This report characterized the expression profile of Mterfd2 and studied the regulation mechanism and biofunctions of this gene. Besides, we characterized Mterfd2 protein subcellular localization. This work might contribute to further study of this gene.In this paper, we reported the basic information of Mterfd2 through bioinformatic tools. The mouse Mterfd2 gene spans 6.7Kb on chromosome 1 and encodes a 346 amino acids protein belonging to mitochondria transcription termination factor family (MTERF4 family). This protein is highly conserved among mammals. Immunocytochemistry data showed that Mterfd2 was targeted to mitochondria. Despite of the fact that mitochondria are maternally inherited, Mterfd2 was not an imprinting gene in E15.5 mouse brain, tongue, heart, lung, liver and kidney according to direct sequencing basic on single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) site. In this paper, the expression profile of Mterfd2 during embryogenesis and in adult mouse was performed through in situ hybridization, quantitative real time PCR (qRT-PCR) and Northern blot analysis. These results showed that Mterfd2 were persistently expressed during the mid-late embryogenesis. In the middle embryogenesis stage, Mterfd2 was expressed mainly in the brain, while in the late stage Mterfd2 was ubiquitously expressed. In adult mouse, Mterfd2 was highly expressed in heart and liver. Besides, it was intriguing to us that Mterfd2 was abundantly expressed in testis. These data suggested that Mterfd2 might play some important roles during organogenesis and spermatogenesis.