Normal Development of Mice Lacking Metablastin (P19), a Phosphoprotein Implicated in Cell Cycle Regulation

doi:10.1074/jbc.271.24.14062

Normal Development of Mice Lacking Metablastin (P19), a Phosphoprotein Implicated in Cell Cycle Regulation*

From the Departments of^‡ Medicine,
^§ Molecular Pharmacology,
^∥ Neurology, and
^‴ Molecular Genetics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York 10461 and the
^” Department of Immunology, New York Medical College, Valhalla, New York 10595

^¶ To whom correspondence should be addressed:
Dept. of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1300 Morris Park Ave., Bronx, NY 10461.
Tel.: 718-430-3249; Fax: 718-430-8557; E-mail: schubart{at}aecom.yu.edu

Abstract

Metablastin, also called P19, stathmin, prosolin, Lap18, and oncoprotein18, is a highly conserved cytosolic protein that undergoes extracellular factor- and cell cycle-regulated serine phosphorylation and developmentally regulated expression in mammals. It has been implicated in a variety of cellular functions including growth and differentiation, and recent evidence suggests an involvement in cell cycle control. To explore its potential role in mammalian development, we have disrupted the gene encoding metablastin by gene targeting in mice. The metablastin null mutants have no overt phenotype regarding development, growth rate, behavior, T cell maturation, or fertility and do not exhibit an increased predisposition to tumors. SCG10, a protein closely related in structure to metablastin, shows no compensatory up-regulation in metablastin^−/− mice. Although the data suggest that metablastin is not essential for mammalian development, the knockout mice should prove valuable in exploring the role of this protein in cell cycle regulation.

Footnotes

↵* This work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grant RO1 NS26333 (to U. K. S.) and American Cancer Society Grant CN-132 (to Raju Kucherlapati). The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. The article must therefore be hereby marked “advertisement” in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
↵¹ The abbreviations used are:

kb

kilobase(s)

FACS

fluorescence-activated cell sorting

ES

embryonic stem.
- Received December 22, 1995.
- Revision received March 22, 1996.