期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：1993
卷号：90
期号：5
页码：1726-1730
DOI：10.1073/pnas.90.5.1726
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Prior studies using transient transfection assays in cultured avian and murine skeletal myotubes indicate that the proximal 2-kb segment of the 5' flanking region of the human myoglobin gene contains transcriptional control elements sufficient to direct muscle-specific and developmentally regulated expression of reporter genes. To examine the function of the human myoglobin gene promoter during development of skeletal and cardiac myocytes in the intact animal, a 2.0-kb myoglobin gene upstream fragment was fused to an Escherichia coli lacZ reporter gene and injected into fertilized mouse oocytes. beta-Galactosidase (beta-gal) activity was detected selectively in cardiac and skeletal myocytes of fetal and adult transgenic mice. A distinctive spatial pattern of myoglobin promoter activity was observed in fetal hearts: beta-gal staining was more pronounced within the left ventricular subendocardium than within the subepicardium and was essentially undetectable in the ventricular trabeculae or atria. Expression of endogenous myoglobin mRNA and protein, assessed by in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry, demonstrated a similar spatial pattern. In contrast, hearts from adult transgenic mice demonstrated essentially homogeneous expression of beta-gal and of endogenous myoglobin mRNA and protein throughout the myocardium, including the trabeculae and atria. These data indicate that the 2.0-kb upstream region of the human myoglobin gene includes cis-acting regulatory elements sufficient to direct transgene expression during murine cardiac development that is myocyte-specific and responsive to positional cues in a similar manner to the endogenous myoglobin gene.
