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An immunohistochemical study of basic fibroblast growth factor in the developing chick

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Abstract

An antiserum against basic fibrobrast growth factor (bFGF) was characterized by immunoblot experiments and used to investigate immunohistochemically the appearance of bFGF-like immunoreactivity in the developing chick. Crude homogenates of chick embryos at every developmental stage, when subjected to immunoblotting with the use of bFGF antiserum, exhibited a main band with the same molecular weight (18 kDa) as bovine bFGF. With immunohistochemistry, bFGF immunoreactivity (bFGF-IR) was detected exclusively in intracellular components of various tissues at different stages of development; bFGF-IR appeared initially on embryonic (incubation) day 3 (E3) in the myotome, on E12 in the spinal cord and ganglia, on E8 in chondrocytes and osteoblasts of the vertebrae, and on E10 in the esophageal epithelium. Immunoreaction products were present either in the cytoplasm or in the nuclei, depending on the types of individual bFGF-containing cells; developing chondrocytes and cells in the stratum basale of the esophagus exhibited intense immunoreactions exclusively within the nuclei, and the other cells mainly within the cytoplasm. Moreover, bFGF-IR was observed in discrete regions of these tissues at different stages; the epithelium of the esophagus containd bFGF-IR in all layers on E10 to E18 with a superficial-to-basal gradient, but it began to exhibit bFGF-IR only in the stratum basale after E20; and bFGF-IR was more abundant in hypertrophic chondrocytes than in proliferating ones. As chicks aged, bFGF-IR decreased or disappeared in the muscles, vertebrae and esophageal epithelium, but neuronal bFGF increased in intensity until the perinatal period and thereafter remained unchanged. These findings suggest that bFGF not only plays a pivotal role in regulating cell proliferation and differentiation in developing chick tissues, but also acts as a non-mitogenic mediator in nervous tissue.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anatomy, Ehime University School of Medicine, Onsen-gun, Shigenobu, 791-02, Ehime, Japan

    Yuko Funakoshi, Seiji Matsuda, Kunihiro Uryu, Hiroko Fujita & Masahiro Sakanaka

  2. Division of Protein Metabolism, Institute for Protein Research, Osaka University, xSuita, Osaka, Japan

    Nobuaki Okumura

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  1. Yuko Funakoshi
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  2. Seiji Matsuda
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  3. Kunihiro Uryu
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  4. Hiroko Fujita
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  5. Nobuaki Okumura
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  6. Masahiro Sakanaka
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Funakoshi, Y., Matsuda, S., Uryu, K. et al. An immunohistochemical study of basic fibroblast growth factor in the developing chick. Anat Embryol 187, 415–423 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00174417

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