Discovery of transcriptional regulators and signaling pathways in the developing pituitary gland by bioinformatic and genomic approaches

• Published in: Genomics (San Diego, Calif.) Vol. 93; no. 5; pp. 449 - 460
• Main Authors: BRINKMEIER, Michelle L, DAVIS, Shannon W, CAMINCI, Piero, MACDONALD, James W, KAWAI, Jun, GHOSH, Debashis, HAYASHIZAKI, Yoshihide, LYONS, Robert H, CAMPER, Sally A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier 01.05.2009
• Subjects: Animals; Biological and medical sciences; Bone Morphogenetic Protein Receptors, Type I - genetics; Computational Biology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gene Expression Profiling; Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; Gene Library; Genes. Genome; Genetics of eukaryotes. Biological and molecular evolution; Genomics; Homeodomain Proteins - genetics; Mice; Models, Animal; Molecular and cellular biology; Molecular genetics; Pituitary Gland - embryology; Pituitary Gland - metabolism; Signal Transduction - genetics; Transcription Factors - metabolism; Transcription. Transcription factor. Splicing. Rna processing; Signal transduction; Prop1; Endocrine gland; Transcription; Genomics; Homeotic gene; Pituitary gland; Cap trapper; Gene expression; Ames dwarf; Homeobox gene; Bioinformatics
• ISSN: 0888-7543; 1089-8646
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ygeno.2008.11.010

We report a catalog of the mouse embryonic pituitary gland transcriptome consisting of five cDNA libraries including wild type tissue from E12.5 and E14.5, Prop1(df/df) mutant at E14.5, and two cDNA subtractions: E14.5 WT-E14.5 Prop1(df/df) and E14.5 WT-E12.5 WT. DNA sequence information is assembled into a searchable database with gene ontology terms representing 12,009 expressed genes. We validated coverage of the libraries by detecting most known homeobox gene transcription factor cDNAs. A total of 45 homeobox genes were detected as part of the pituitary transcriptome, representing most expected ones, which validated library coverage, and many novel ones, underscoring the utility of this resource as a discovery tool. We took a similar approach for signaling-pathway members with novel pituitary expression and found 157 genes related to the BMP, FGF, WNT, SHH and NOTCH pathways. These genes are exciting candidates for regulators of pituitary development and function.