Epithelial lineages of the small intestine have unique patterns of GATA expression

Abstract

The ability of the GATA family of factors to interact with numerous other factors, co-factors, and repressors suggests that they may play key roles in tissues and cells where they are expressed. Adult mouse small intestine has been shown to express GATA-4, GATA-5, and GATA-6, where they have been implicated in the activation of a number of intestinal genes. Determination of which GATA factor(s) are involved in a specific function in tissues expressing multiple family members has proven difficult. The immunohistochemical analysis presented here demonstrate that within the mouse small intestine GATA-4/-5/-6 are found to be uniquely distributed among the various differentiated lineages of the intestinal epithelium. Among differentiated cells GATA-4 is found only in the villous enterocytes. GATA-5 is absent from enterocytes, but was found in the remaining lineages: goblet, Paneth and enteroendocrine. Additionally, high levels of GATA-6 are found in only one of these differentiated cell types, the enteroendocrine lineage. The observed distribution suggests that the GATA factors may have distinct roles in lineage allocation, lineage maintenance, and/or terminal differentiation events in small intestine.

Gata4 Is Essential for the Maintenance of Jejunal-Ileal Identities in the Adult Mouse Small Intestine

“…Although it is well recognized that Gata4 is highly expressed in absorptive enterocytes on villi (3,7,9,44), its expression in proliferating crypt cells has not been fully appreciated. We compared three different anti-Gata4 antibodies by immunofluorescence and found that goat anti-Gata4 produced immunostaining with the highest specificity and lowest background.…”

“…It is not known if this regional pattern occurs in humans. Gata4 is expressed in absorptive enterocytes on villi (3,7,9,44), where it is thought to transactivate specific target genes (3,7,8,10,12,25,44). Isolated Gata4 Ϫ/Ϫ cells in the small intestines of chimeric E18.5 mice do not express the intestinal differentiation marker liver fatty acid binding protein (Fabp1 product) (7), providing key in vivo data demonstrating a critical importance for Gata4 in the regulation of intestinal gene expression and a lack of overlapping functions with other intestinal GATA factors.…”

Cooperative interactions among intestinal GATA factors in activating the rat liver fatty acid binding protein gene

“…This discrepancy may reflect a difference in transcript vs. protein expression as characterized for GATA-6 (5), or a difference in assay sensitivity between mRNA detection and immunohistochemistry, or a difference in cellular gene expression in the intestinal epithelium. A detailed study of immunoreactive GATA factors in the adult murine intestinal epithelium found GATA-5 expression was confined to nonenterocytic lineages (15). The immunohistochemical assay performed in this work clearly demonstrates a substantial increase in GATA-5 expression in absorptive enterocytes at 1 wk compared with the newborn or adult animal.…”

“…Immunohistochemistry for murine GATA-4, GATA-5, and GATA-6 was performed as previously described (12). The normal small intestinal tissue samples were harvested from FVB/N mice on postnatal days 1,7,12,15,18, and 21. Briefly, tissues were fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde and embedded in paraffin before sectioning.…”

Isolated ileal interposition in enteroendocrine L cells differentiation

“…170 Each animal will be maintained on spontaneous ventilation during the procedure, and the anaesthetic plane will be checked periodically every 45 minutes by assessing the auricular and interdigital reflexes, which are abolished during anaesthesia. When these reflexes reappear, one-third of the initial anaesthetic dose will be administered.…”