|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
| Home Help Feedback Subscriptions Archive Search Table of Contents | ||||
Development, Vol 116, Issue 4 1101-1112, Copyright © 1992 by Company of Biologists
JOURNAL ARTICLES |
MJ Donoghue, BL Patton, JR Sanes and JP Merlie
Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Washington University, School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110.
We previously used mice bearing a myosin light chain-chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (MLC1-CAT) transgene to show that adult muscle cells bear a heritable, cell autonomous memory of their rostrocaudal position. CAT mRNA and protein are expressed in a > 100-fold rostrocaudal gradient in skeletal muscles of developing and adult MLC1-CAT mice (Donoghue, M. J., Merlie, J. P., Rosenthal, N. and Sanes, J. R. (1991). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 88, 5847-5851; Donoghue, M. J., Alvarez, J. D., Merlie, J. P. and Sanes, J. R. (1991). J. Cell Biol. 115, 423-434). Moreover, both in primary cultures and in myogenic cell lines prepared from individual muscles of these mice, CAT levels reflect the body position from which the myoblasts were derived (Donoghue, M.J., Morris-Valero, R., Johnson, Y.R., Merlie, J.P. and Sanes, J. R. (1992). Cell 69, 67-77). Here, we show that the methylation state of the MLC1-CAT transgene in skeletal muscles is also graded along the rostrocaudal axis: methylation levels decrease and expression levels increase in the order, jaw-->neck-->chest and forelimb-->hindlimb. Methylation levels are also approx. 10-fold higher in rostrally derived than in caudally derived myogenic cell lines, which express low and high levels of CAT, respectively. Within each cell line, undifferentiated cells (myoblasts), which do not express the transgene, and differentiated cells (myotubes), which do, are indistinguishable in methylation state. Thus, differentiation-related changes in transgene expression do not affect position-related levels of transgene methylation. On the other hand, treatment of rostrally derived lines with the demethylating agent, 5-azacytidine, decreases methylation and increases expression of the transgene. Thus, perturbation of methylation affects expression. Taken together, these results suggest that methylation provides a genomic imprint of rostrocaudal body position that may serve as a component of the positional memory that mammalian cells retain into adulthood.
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  D. Pirottin, L. Grobet, A. Adamantidis, F. Farnir, C. Herens, H. D. Schroder, and M. Georges Transgenic engineering of male-specific muscular hypertrophy PNAS, May 3, 2005; 102(18): 6413 - 6418. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 N. Esumi, Y. Oshima, Y. Li, P. A. Campochiaro, and D. J. Zack Analysis of the VMD2 Promoter and Implication of E-box Binding Factors in Its Regulation J. Biol. Chem., April 30, 2004; 279(18): 19064 - 19073. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 S. Calvo, D. Vullhorst, P. Venepally, J. Cheng, I. Karavanova, and A. Buonanno Molecular Dissection of DNA Sequences and Factors Involved in Slow Muscle-Specific Transcription Mol. Cell. Biol., December 15, 2001; 21(24): 8490 - 8503. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 H. Wang, S. R. Chadaram, A. S. Norton, R. Lewis, J. Boyum, W. Trumble, J. R. Sanes, and M. B. Laskowski Positionally Selective Growth of Embryonic Spinal Cord Neurites on Muscle Membranes J. Neurosci., June 15, 1999; 19(12): 4984 - 4993. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 U Grieshammer, M. McGrew, and N Rosenthal Role of methylation in maintenance of positionally restricted transgene expression in developing muscle Development, January 7, 1995; 121(7): 2245 - 2253. [Abstract] [PDF]
|
|
