Analysis of the IDDM candidate gene Prss16 in NOD and NON mice.

The thymus-specific serine protease Prss16 is highly expressed by the epithelial cells in the thymic cortex. It has been suggested to play an important role in the positive selection of T cells through the antigen presention pathway of the cortical antigen presenting cells. Recently, the gene encoding Prss16 has been linked to insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) susceptibility independent of HLA-DR3 suggesting the Prss16 may be involved in the development of autoimmune disease. Due to the similarities of the gene structure and expression pattern between the human and mouse genes, we compared Prss16 between non-obese diabetic (NOD) and non-obese non-diabetic (NON) mice. Analysis of the Prss16 coding region failed to identify any differences in sequence. Northern analysis and semi-quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction showed that the mRNA was equal in size and abundance in the two strains. In situ hybridization showed similar patterns of staining. Therefore, our data suggests that there is no significant different in the gene structure, transcription level, and expression pattern of Prss16 gene between NOD and NON mice.