Profiling genes expressed in human fetal cartilage using 13,155 expressed sequence tags

Abstract

The EST approach is an effective way of characterizing the genes expressed in cartilage. These data represent the most extensive molecular information on human fetal cartilage to date. The availability of this information will serve as a basis for further research to identify genes that are essential in cartilage development.

A transcriptional profile of human fetal cartilage

“…To evaluate changing patterns of cartilage gene expression during embryonic development, the most highly expressed genes at 18-20 weeks gestation were compared with those at 8-12 weeks as reported by Zhang et al (2003). Among the ten most highly represented genes in each library there were only three genes in common, COL2A1, COL9A1 and EEF1A1.…”

“…Genes in bold are uncharacterized genes. Underlined genes are those whose expression in cartilage has not previously been documented (NCBI-Unigene; dbEST; Krakow et al, 2003a,b;Zhang et al, 2003;Kumar et al, 2001). %: Percentage of the total number of clones that represent a particular gene (total number of clones=6266).…”

“…The NCBI database also contains sequences from an osteoarthritic cartilage cDNA library, with 1757 UniGene clusters represented (Kumar et al, 2001). Recently, a partial profile of characterized genes identified among 13,155 cDNA clones from fetal cartilage at 8-12 weeks was published (Zhang et al, 2003). Krakow et al (2003b) published an initial profile of cartilage gene expression from the 18-20-week gestational stage.…”

Vascular cell responses to ECM produced by smooth muscle cells on TiO2 nanotubes

“…Bone ECM is mainly composed of collagen, mineral and non-collagenous proteins (osteocalcin, fibronectin and vitronectin) [44]. Cartilage ECM consists of collagen II and aggrecans [45]. This difference in ECM composition may be beneficial to cell growth and differentiation, and different ECM molecules may selectively stimulate different signaling pathways by ECM interactions with cells [46].…”

Expression profiling of human fetal growth plate cartilage by EST sequencing

“…EST profiles have been created for human osteoarthritic cartilage (Kumar et al, 2001), the human chondrocyte HCS-2/8 cell line (Jung et al, 2004) and mouse growth plate cartilage (Okihana and Yamada, 1999). Recently, Zhang et al (2003) published a partial gene expression profile derived from 13,155 ESTs from human fetal cartilage at 8 -12 weeks and Pogue et al (2004) published the sequence of 6266 clones from an 18 -20 week human fetal cartilage cDNA library.…”