Gene expression dynamics in deer antler: mesenchymal differentiation toward chondrogenesis

Abstract

Annual re-growth of deer antler represents a unique example of complete organ regeneration. Because antler mesenchymal cells retain their embryonic capacity to develop into cartilage or bone, studying antler development provides a natural system to follow gene expression changes during mesenchymal differentiation toward chondrogenic/osteogenic lineage. To identify novel genes involved either in early events of mesenchymal cell specialization or in robust bone development, we have introduced a 3 K heterologous microarray set-up (deer cDNA versus mouse template). Fifteen genes were differentially expressed; genes for housekeeping, regulatory functions (components of different signaling pathways, including FGF, TGFbeta, Wnt), and genes encoding members of the Polycomb group were represented. Expression dynamics for genes are visualized by an expression logo. The expression profile of the gene C21orf70 of unknown function is described along with the effects when over-expressed; furthermore the nuclear localization of the cognate protein is shown. In this report, we demonstrate the particular advantage of the velvet antler model in bone research for: (1) identification of mesenchymal and precartilaginous genes and (2) targeting genes upregulated in robust cartilage development.

An activity-maintaining sequential protein extraction method for bioactive assay and proteome analysis of velvet antlers

“…Therefore, proteomic studies on deer followed a cross-species strategy, using a given protein database of other sequenced organism with close relative genome, analogous to the proteome profiling of Pedobacter cryoconitis [20], L. starkeyi [21] and Marenzelleria [22]. Since deer and bovine are very closely related in phylogenetics [23,24], the gene sequences of cow show high similarity (in the range 90-99%) with deer genes in the coding regions of mRNAs [25,26]. Similarly, some reports on gene expression in deer antler also revealed that the deer genes all showed high sequence homology (above 90%) to that of bovine [5,27].…”

Deer Antlers – A Model of Mammalian Appendage Regeneration: An Extensive Review

“…As already mentioned, FGF signaling appears to be involved in the control of proliferation of the progenitor cells from the mesenchymal growth zone [11,54] . A study investigating the distribution of the de-phosphorylated form of ␤ -catenin by immunocytochemistry found the most intense staining in this zone [70] , suggesting a role for Wnt/ ␤ -catenin signaling in antler growth.…”

“…FGFs are probably also involved in the control of antler growth. Thus, FGF-2 has been demonstrated to increase the proliferation rate of cultured cells from the mesenchymal growth zone of the regenerating antler [11] and a microarray study indicated that FGF signaling is activated in the antler mesenchyme [54] .…”

Antler development and coupled osteoporosis in the skeleton of red deer Cervus elaphus: expression dynamics for regulatory and effector genes

“…Previously we identiWed a set of genes which are diVerentially expressed during the rapid but controlled tissue proliferation (Korpos et al 2005;Molnar et al 2007;Gyurján et al 2007;Villányi et al 2008) and another set, which is involved in the skeletal physiological osteoporosis (Borsy et al 2009). In this work, we developed an antlerspeciWc cDNA microarray in order to compare gene expression levels in the tissues of the mineralizing velvet antler and the skeleton (ribs and vertebra) of deer stags.…”