Expression Studies of Melanotransferrin in Mouse Brain. Mus musculus

Melanotransferrin (MTf) or melanoma tumor antigen p97 is an iron (Fe)-binding transferrin homolog expressed highly on melanomas and at lower levels on normal tissues. It has been suggested that MTf is involved in a variety of processes such as Fe metabolism and cellular differentiation. Considering the crucial role of Fe in many metabolic pathways e.g., DNA synthesis, it is important to understand the function of MTf. To define the roles of MTf, a MTf knockout (MTf -/-) mouse model was developed. Examination of the MTf -/- mice demonstrated no phenotypic differences compared to wild-type littermates. However, microarray analysis showed differential expression of molecules involved in proliferation such as Mef2a, Tcf4, Gls and Apod in MTf -/- mice compared to MTf +/+ littermates, suggesting a role for MTf in proliferation and tumorigenesis. Keywords: Melanotransferrin, knockout mouse, comparative genomic hybridization Overall design: Six 17.5 week old female mice comprising four MTf -/- and two MTf +/+ from the same litter were used. Total RNA was isolated from brain tissue and processed as per standard Affymetrix protocol to obtain final cRNA products that were hybridized to the mouse GeneChip® 430 2.0. The mouse GeneChip® 430 2.0 consists of greater than 39,000 transcripts and variants from over 34,000 well characterized mouse genes. On completion of hybridization and washing, microarray chips were scanned with the Affymetrix GeneChip® Scanner 3000 (Millenium Sciences).