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The developmental changes of N-acetylaspartic acid (NA-Asp), N-acetyl-alpha-aspartylglutamic acid (NA-Asp-Glu), and beta-citryl-L-glutamic acid (beta-CG) have been examined in the cerebrum, cerebellum, brain stem and spinal cord of both rat and guinea pig by the gas chromatographic method developed in our studies. A rapid increase in the concentration of NA-Asp was observed postnatally in every region of the rat brain. On the other hand, all regions of guinea pig brain showed the prenatal increases. NA-Asp-Glu showed a different developmental profile, depending on region of the brain, in the two species. The concentration of NA-Asp-Glu remained constantly low during brain maturation in the rostral regions. In the caudal portions it showed a marked increase during maturation and reached a high level in the adult brain. The concentration of beta-CG was highest at birth in all regions of rat brain and rapidly decreased by 20 days after birth and remained low thereafter. The rapid decrease occurred in the guinea pig during the foetal period, and beta-CG content decreased to an adult level at birth.

—Methods for the determination of methyl‐lysine, methyllarginine and methylhistidine residues of tissue proteins are described. They consist of preliminary purification of basic amino acids, enzymic removal of lysine, arginine and histidine followed by amino acid analysis. Recovery rates and specificities of the method were satisfactory. The contents of methylamino acids in proteins of mammalian organs were determined. The distribution of proteins containing the methylamino acids in human brain showed that the concentrations of methyl‐lysine and NG,N′G‐dimethylarginine were highest in the gray matter of the cerebellar cortex and relatively high in regions rich in gray matter, while those of NG‐mono‐ and NG,N′G‐dimethylarginine were highest in the white matter. The following findings suggest that most of the NG‐mono‐ and NG,N′G‐dimethylarginine was associated with the myelin basic protein. The distribution of the methylarginine residues of acid‐soluble proteins in bovine brains coincided with the cerebroside pattern. The concentrations of the amino acids in acid‐soluble proteins of rat brain increased concomitantly with the increase of cerebroside. The methylamino acid content in proteins increased during the purification of the myelin basic protein from the white matter of human and bovine brains. Proteins containing NG,NG‐dimethyiarginine and di‐ and trimethyl‐lysine are concentrated in cell nuclei. The first amino acid was found mainly in nucleoplasmic proteins and the other two were found in histones. The concentration of 3‐methylhistidine residue, highest in muscular proteins, is low in cerebral proteins and is probably derived from proteins of walls of blood vessels in the brain.

The Sox6 gene is a member of the Sox gene family, which encodes transcription factors, and previous studies have suggested that it plays an important role in the development of the central nervous system. Aggregation of embryonic carcinoma P19 cells with retinoic acid (RA) results in the development of neurons, glia, and fibroblast-like cells. Sox6 mRNA increases rapidly in P19 cells during RA induction and then decreases during differentiation into neuronal cells. To investigate whether Sox6 expression is essential for neuronal differentiation, we