Developmental expression of survivin during embryonic submandibular salivary gland development

Description

Background The regulation of programmed cell death is critical to developmental homeostasis and normal morphogenesis of embryonic tissues. Survivin, a member of the inhibitors of apoptosis protein (IAP) family primarily expressed in embryonic cells, is both an anti-apoptosis and a pro-survival factor. Since our previous studies have demonstrated the importance of apoptosis during embryonic submandibular salivary gland (SMG) development, we postulated that survivin is a likely mediator of SMG epithelial cell survival. Results We investigated the developmental expression of survivin in Pseudoglandular (~ E14), Canalicular (~ E15) and Terminal Bud (~ E17) Stage SMGs. We report a significant 26% increase in transcript levels between the Canalicular and Terminal Bud Stages. Immunohistochemical studies demonstrate nuclear-localized survivin protein in epithelial cells bounding forming lumina in Canalicular and Terminal Bud Stage SMGs. Conclusions Survivin is known to be a pro-survival and anti-apoptotic factor. Given that survivin translocation into the nucleus is required for the induction of entry into the cell cycle and the inhibition of apoptosis, our demonstration of nuclear-localized survivin protein in presumptive ductal and proacinar lumen-bounding cells suggests that survivin may be a key mediator of embryonic SMG epithelial cell survival.

Resources

Name Format Description Link
21 Visit the original government dataset for complete information, documentation, and data access. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC31339/

Tags

  • apoptosis-regulation
  • embryonic-development
  • nih
  • salivary-gland-development
  • survivin-expression

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