Author(s)

Irina Surgucheva, Belinda MacMahon, Andrei Surguchov

Retinal Biology Research Laboratory, Veterans Administration Medical Center, Kansas City, USA.
Washington University, St. Louis, USA.

Synucleins belong to a family of small soluble proteins with chaperonic activity implicated in human diseases, but their normal function is not completely understood. Expression of ?, ? and ?-synucleins was analyzed in rat and human lens on different stages of development. No significant expression of ?- and ?-synucleins were found, whereas ?-synuclein was expressed in both species only on early stages of lens development. Examination of ?-synuclein upstream region demonstrated the similarity in its organization with promoter regions of crystallins and heat shock protein’s genes. ?-Synuclein upstream region contains motives identical or similar to regulatory cis-elements in their promoters including binding sites for Pax6 and Sox. These results suggest that ?-synuclein plays a role in distinct temporal events in lens development, presumably acting as a specific chaperone.

Lens; Crystallins; Synucleins; Promoter; Chaperones; Heat Shock Proteins

Surgucheva, I. , MacMahon, B. and Surguchov, A. (2010) Patterns of synuclein expression throughout lens development. Journal of Biophysical Chemistry, 1, 12-18. doi: 10.4236/jbpc.2010.11002.