The mRNA expression of neurocan, a brain-specific chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan, in neoplastic mammary glands in mice.

In the experiment of mouse transforming growth factor alpha (TGF alpha) gene expression in mammary tumors, various sizes of amplified products by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) using mouse TGF alpha primers were detected in addition to a predicted size in four strains of mice. During the further analysis of these RT-PCR products in mouse mammary tumors, the transcript of neurocan gene was detected in the mammary tumor from SHN mice by the cloning and nucleotide sequence analysis after RT-PCR reaction using mouse TGF alpha primers. The 5'-nucleotide sequence of sequential 246bp in the amplified cDNA of 527bp was completely identical to a middle part of mouse neurocan cDNA sequence, one of the chondroitin-sulfate proteoglycan expressed in the nervous tissue.