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Mutually exclusive expression of odorant receptor transgenes

Nature Neuroscience volume 3, pages 687–693 (2000)Cite this article

Abstract

To study the mutually exclusive expression of odorant receptor (OR) genes, we generated transgenic mice that carried the murine OR gene MOR28. Expression of the transgene and the endogenous MOR28 was distinguished by using two different markers, β-galactosidase and green fluorescent protein (GFP), respectively. Double staining of the olfactory epithelium revealed that the two genes were rarely expressed simultaneously in individual olfactory neurons. A similar exclusion was also observed between differently tagged but identical transgenes integrated into the same locus of one particular chromosome. Although allelic inactivation has been reported for the choice between the maternal and paternal alleles, this is the first demonstration of mutually exclusive activation among non-allelic OR gene members with identical coding and regulatory sequences. Such an unusual mode of gene expression, monoallelic and mutually exclusive, has previously been shown only for the antigen-receptor genes of the immune system.

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Figure 1: Expression of the transgenic MOR28 gene.
Figure 2: Structure of the transgenic YAC-460 region.
Figure 3: Detection of neurons expressing the transgenic and the GFP-tagged endogenous MOR28 genes.
Figure 4: Detection of OSNs expressing transgenic MOR28 genes.
Figure 5: Detection of glomeruli for MOR28-expressing neurons in coronal sections of the olfactory bulb.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the following people for providing us with plasmid samples or cell lines: H. Gu (pGH-1), P. Soriano (pPGKneobpA), T. Yagi (DT-A cassette), J. Thomas (tau–lacZ cassette), K. Moriyoshi (pGAP–GFP), A. Nagy (R1 cells) and I. Saito (adenovirus vector). This work was supported by the Special Promotion Research Grants from the Ministry of Education and Culture of Japan and by grants from Toray Science Foundation, Nissan Science Foundation and Mitsubishi Foundation.

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Author notes

  1. Shou Serizawa and Tomohiro Ishii: The first two authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biophysics and Biochemistry, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, 113-0032 , Japan

    Shou Serizawa, Tomohiro Ishii, Hiroko Nakatani, Akio Tsuboi, Fumikiyo Nagawa & Hitoshi Sakano

  2. Center for Experimental Medicine, Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, 108-8639, Japan

    Masahide Asano, Katsuko Sudo, Junko Sakagami & Yoichiro Iwakura

  3. Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, The University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, 94720-3200, California, USA

    Hitomi Sakano

  4. Division of Bioscience Graduate School of Environmental Earth Science, Laboratory of Cytogenetics, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0810, Japan

    Takashi Ijiri & Yoichi Matsuda

  5. Center for Animal Resources and Development, Kumamoto University, Kumamoto, 862-0976, Japan

    Misao Suzuki

  6. Division of Speciation Mechanisms I, National Institute for Basic Biology, Okazaki, 444-8585, Japan

    Tetsuo Yamamori

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  1. Shou Serizawa
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Correspondence to Hitoshi Sakano.

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Serizawa, S., Ishii, T., Nakatani, H. et al. Mutually exclusive expression of odorant receptor transgenes. Nat Neurosci 3, 687–693 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/76641

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