Discovery of two novel functional genes from differentiation of neural stem cells in the striatum of the fetal rat.

Neural stem cells (NSC) are capable of differentiating into neurons and glia. However, the molecular mechanisms regulating NSC differentiation are not well understood. We have used the differential display polymerase chain reaction to analyze the differentially expressed genes of NSC from Sprague-Dawley rat striatum. Twelve differentially expressed sequence tags (ESTs) have been discovered and two of them, SHD10 and SHD11, were confirmed to be positive by reverse Northern blot techniques. Sequencing analyses showed that SHD10 shared a 94% (547/581) homology with mouse EST BI687817, but its biological function has not been reported. SHD11 shared a 91% (512/562) homology with mouse EST BG172336. It encodes an open reading frame containing 117 amino acids. Analysis of protein sequence indicated that it has a 98% homology with dendritic cell factor (gi18203393). Our research primarily discovered that these two genes are associated with differentiation of NSC. How they function in the process of differentiation needs further study.

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