Evidence for regulatory genes on mouse chromosome 7 that affect the quantitative expression of proteins in the fetal and newborn liver.

A series of deletions around the albino locus on mouse chromosome 7 is believed to include one or more regulatory genes that control the activities of a cluster of liver enzymes. To further characterize the functions of this region of the mouse genome, we have used quantitative two-dimensional electrophoresis to analyze the effects of two of these deletions, c3H and c14CoS, on the expression of liver proteins. More than 400 distinct protein gene products were quantitated in livers from fetal and newborn wild-type homozygous (cch/cch), heterozygous (cch/c3H or cch/c14CoS), and deletion homozygous (c3H/c3H or c14CoS/c14CoS) mice. Livers of fetal and newborn c3H heterozygotes and homozygous wild-type littermates produced qualitatively identical protein patterns after two-dimensional electrophoresis. In livers of c3H homozygous fetuses, however, abnormal amounts (either increased or decreased relative to homozygous wild-type and heterozygous littermates) of 29 proteins were found. Twenty-eight of these 29 protein anomalies were also found in livers of newborn c3H homozygotes. Livers of fetal and newborn mice homozygous for the c14CoS deletion, which overlaps the c3H deletion and produces a similar phenotype, expressed normal amounts of these proteins. One of the 29 proteins (MSN807) has an amino-terminal sequence similar to a 23-kDa translationally controlled protein abundant in mouse erythroleukemia and sarcoma-180 cells. These results suggest that normal chromosome 7 contains genes, located within the region of the c3H but not the c14CoS deletion, that regulate the abundance of specific proteins in the liver. These proteins cannot be related to the phenotypic alterations shared by the c3H and c14CoS deletions.