PMID:9356923

Citation	Bugra, K and Hicks, D (1997) Acidic and basic fibroblast growth factor messenger RNA and protein show increased expression in adult compared to developing normal and dystrophic rat retina. J. Mol. Neurosci. 9:13-25
Abstract	To further elucidate the possible roles of fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) in retinal pathophysiology, messenger RNA levels of acidic and basic FGF (aFGF and bFGF, respectively) were measured throughout embryonic and postnatal development until adulthood in normal and dystrophic (Royal College of Surgeons, RCS) rat retinas using sensitive reverse transcription-coupled polymerase chain reaction (PCR) techniques. In normal rats, both aFGF and bFGF transcript levels remained steadily low throughout embryogenesis and up until 7 d of postnatal age. By 13 d bFGF mRNA had increased 30-fold, and by adulthood (4 mo) levels were 150 times greater than in newborn retina. Dystrophic RCS retinas followed the same basic pattern, except that bFGF expression levels were increased relative to normal rats: By 4 d postnatal RCS retinas contained three times more bFGF mRNA than normal, by 7 d they contained six times more, and by 10 d they contained eight times more. In contrast, aFGF mRNA levels rose only threefold between embryonic and adult stages, and did not show any differences between normal and RCS rats. In parallel, staining of lightly fixed frozen sections of young (< 20 d) normal rat retina with antibodies to bFGF revealed only faint labeling of neural cells, whereas adult retinal sections were labeled strongly, especially within the photoreceptor layer. Twenty-day RCS rat retina showed detectable bFGF-like immunoreactivity. Hence, these data indicate that major aFGF and bFGF expression occurs only late in retinal maturation, suggesting these factors act principally as survival factors, especially for photoreceptors. In addition, the increased expression in a degenerative mutant strain may indicate the early onset of general cellular stress.
Links	PubMed Online version:10.1007/BF02789391
Keywords	Animals; Fibroblast Growth Factor 1/genetics; Fibroblast Growth Factor 1/metabolism; Fibroblast Growth Factor 2/genetics; Fibroblast Growth Factor 2/metabolism; Immunohistochemistry; Polymerase Chain Reaction; RNA, Messenger/genetics; RNA, Messenger/metabolism; Rats; Rats, Wistar; Retinal Degeneration/genetics; Retinal Degeneration/metabolism; Time Factors
edit table

Annotations

Gene product	Qualifier	GO Term	Evidence Code	with/from	Aspect	Extension	Notes	Status
RAT:FGF2	involved_in	GO:0007568: aging	ECO:0000270: expression pattern evidence used in manual assertion		P		Seeded From UniProt	complete

References

See Help:References for how to manage references in GONUTS.