Identification of the pro-oncogene stathmin/op18 mRNA in the brain of mitochondrial Mn-superoxide dismutase-deficient mice by a modified differential display PCR.
Differential gene expression plays a critical role in many biological processes. To facilitate the screening of the entire mRNA species for cloning differentially expressed genes, we have made an effort to merge two polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based methods, differential display (DD) and arbitrarily primed RNA fingerprinting (APR-FP), with some modifications. Using this modified method to screen the mRNAs of the brain tissues of manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD)-deficient mice, we found several differentially expressed mRNA species. One mRNA species that was further analyzed by Northern hybridization and sequencing, and was confirmed to be induced only in the brain of MnSOD-deficient mice, encoded stathmin/op18. The MnSOD deficiency causes oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction. Thus, the induction of stathmin/op18, a gene linked with microtubule catastrophe (disassembly) and often upregulated in neoplastic tissues and proliferating cells, may provide some understanding of the pathological changes in the brain of MnSOD-deficient mice.