TY - JOUR TI - Zebrafish spata2 is expressed at early developmental stages AU - Moro, Enrico AU - Maran, Claudio AU - Slongo, M. Liliana AU - Argenton, Francesco AU - Toppo, Stefano AU - Onisto, Maurizio T2 - The International Journal of Developmental Biology AB - Spata2 (spermatogenesis-associated protein 2) was originally described as a novel gene involved in the spermatogenic process. In this study, we cloned a potential zebrafish spata2 orthologue. The consensus open reading frame (1650 bp) encodes a polypeptide of 550 amino acids which shares 37% identity with the human SPATA2. Bioinformatic analysis reveals a small pattern PW [KR] KE [YF][RK] which seems to be of particular interest in the light of its strong conservation between SPATA2 and the recently discovered TAMO protein of D. melanogaster. RT-PCR analysis in adult zebrafish tissues revealed that spata2 mRNA has a broad distribution. Whole-mount in situ hybridization demonstrated that spata2 transcripts are maternally derived and becomes strongly localized in the central nervous system at early developmental stages. From 5 dpf, spata2 expression becomes detectable in the gut and pronephric duct epithelium, suggesting a wide tissue function during vertebrate development. PY - 2007 DO - 10.1387/ijdb.062220em VL - 51 IS - 3 SP - 241 EP - 246 J2 - Int. J. Dev. Biol. LA - en SN - 0214-6282 SN - 1696-3547 UR - https://ijdb.ehu.eus/article/062220em Y2 - 2024/11/24/17:20:11 ER -