Evolutionarily conserved role of nucleostemin: controlling proliferation of stem/progenitor cells during early vertebrate development.

ABSTRACT: Nucleostemin (NS) is a putative GTPase expressed preferentially in the nucleoli of neuronal and embryonic stem cells and several cancer cell lines. Transfection and knockdown studies indicated that NS controls the proliferation of these cells by interacting with the p53 tumor suppressor protein and regulating its activity. To assess the physiological role of NS in vivo, we generated a mutant mouse line with a specific gene trap event that inactivates the NS allele. The corresponding NS(-/-) embryos died around embryonic day 4. Analyses of NS mutant blastocysts indicated that NS is not required to maintain pluripotency, nucleolar integrity, or survival of the embryonic stem cells. However, the homozygous mutant blastocysts failed to enter S phase even in the absence of functional p53. Haplo

SUBMITTER: Beekman C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1698517 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature