Expresión de genes relacionados con la función de ebaf en el oviducto

MARTIN E. ARGAÑARAZ; PABLO A. VALDECANTOS; DORA C. MICELI

Tafí del Valle, Tucumán, Argentina

Jornada; XXIV Jornadas Científicas de la Sociedad de Biología de Tucumán; 2007

Asociación de Biología de Tucumán

EXPRESSION OF GENES RELATED TO EBAF OVIDUCTAL FUNCTION Argañaraz, ME.; Valdecantos, PA.; Miceli, DC. INSIBIO, (CONICET-UNT), Chacabuco 461, 4000. SM. de Tucumán. E-mail: martin3ea@yahoo.com.ar Ebaf, a member of the TGF-b family, is involved in the regulation of other members of this family. Besides is one of the factors that regulate the extracellular matrix (ECM) turnover during menstrual bleeding. The expression of Ebaf; CFC (receptor) and other proteins that participate in ECM remodellation (CTGF and MMP7) in the early pregnant and seudopregnant rat oviduct were studied. By RT-PCR Ebaf, CFC and MMP7 showed a similar expression pattern. All genes showed higher expression level at day 4th of pregnancy while no changes were observed during the seudopregnant. Ebaf expression level was lower in the seudopregnant than in the pregnant rat oviduct. CTGF showed no differences between  pregnancy and seudopregnancy. Western blots reveal that the mature form of Ebaf (26 kDa) was increased at the 4th day of pregnancy respect to the control. These results demonstrate that Ebaf, and related genes as CFC and MMP7 are up-regulated during the pregnancy however, their regulation appear to be unrelated to the control by sexual hormones. It is possible that the embryo and cytokines present in the oviductal fluid during the early pregnancy might be involved. The presence of CFC and Ebaf mature protein in the oviduct and the fluid would indicate that Ebaf is active and that could act in an autocrine way on the oviduct and in a paracrine one over the embryo.