Isolation of Sna, a mouse gene homologous to the Drosophila genes snail and escargot: its expression pattern suggests multiple roles during postimplantation development.

The Drosophila gene snail encodes a zinc-finger protein that is required zygotically for mesoderm formation. Snail acts as a transcriptional repressor during the period of mesoderm formation by preventing expression of mesectodermal and ectodermal genes in the mesoderm anlage. A Xenopus homolog (xsnail) of snail has been cloned and it too is expressed early in the mesodermal germ layer. We have isolated cDNA clones of a mouse gene (termed Sna) closely related to snail and xsnail and another Drosophila gene termed escargot that also encodes a zinc-finger protein. Sna encodes a 264 amino acid protein that contains four zinc fingers. Developmental RNA blot analysis showed that Sna transcripts are expressed throughout postimplantation development. Analysis of the spatial and temporal localization of Sna transcripts by in situ hybridization to both whole-mount and sectioned embryos revealed that, in the gastrulating embryo, Sna is expressed throughout the primitive streak and in the entire mesodermal germ layer. By 9.5 days post coitum (dpc) Sna is expressed at high levels in cephalic neural crest and limb bud mesenchyme. In fact, by 10.5 dpc Sna expression is observed in most mesenchymal cells, whether of neural crest or mesodermal origin. Later in gestation, high levels of Sna expression are observed in condensing cartilage and in the mesenchymal component of several tissues (lung, kidney, teeth and vibrissae) that undergo epithelial-mesenchymal inductive interactions during development. These results suggest multiple roles for the Sna gene in gastrulation and organogenesis during murine development.