The mouse 14-3-3 epsilon isoform, a kinase regulator whose expression pattern is modulated in mesenchyme and neuronal differentiation.

Kidney development is a complex, little understood process based on inductive interactions and intricate epithelial and mesenchymal morphogenesis. Here, we report the use of subtractive hybridization to clone cDNAs expressed in early nephrogenesis. cDNA made from E14.5 mouse kidney was hybridized with adult mouse liver mRNA employing a technique based on labeling the driver mRNA with photoactivatable biotin and using streptavidin to remove RNA:cDNA complexes. An aliquot of the unhybridized cDNA identified several clones including three isolates that proved to be the epsilon isoform of the 14-3-3 gene family that is, among other functions, implicated in protein kinase C regulation. Northern blot analysis showed a 2.0-kb transcript widely present in mouse embryos from E7.5 onward, but, as expected from the subtractive strategy, absent in adult liver. In situ hybridization was carried out on mouse embryos aged E8.5 to E15.5. These showed that, in the E8.5 embryo, the 14-3-3 epsilon gene was expressed throughout the embryo, but that, within a day, expression was more marked in mesenchyme than elsewhere (e.g., epithelial tissue, where it was generally low), although levels in neural tissue rose again by about E12.5. This difference was maintained until E15.5 when expression levels started to drop in most tissues, with those of the nervous system, tooth, and kidney being exceptions. Perhaps the most intriguing feature of the expression pattern, however, was that, while the gene was strongly expressed in early mesenchyme, the level of expression decreased as the mesenchyme differentiated. This change was particularly noted in mesenchymal condensations that would become cartilage, bone, and myotome-derived muscle, in the presumptive muscle layer of the gut, and in the kidney. In this last case, the gene was strongly expressed in stem cells and mesenchyme, but expression levels dropped markedly as early nephrogenic condensates epithelialized. The results as a whole thus argue for the 14-3-3 epsilon isoform playing roles in neural development and in early mesenchyme, with this latter function being lost or replaced as the tissue differentiates.