This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Supplemental material
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowReprints and Permissions
Right arrow Copyright Information
Right arrow Books from ASM Press
Right arrow MicrobeWorld
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Zubair, M.
Right arrow Articles by Morohashi, K.-i.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Zubair, M.
Right arrow Articles by Morohashi, K.-i.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Molecular and Cellular Biology, December 2008, p. 7030-7040, Vol. 28, No. 23
0270-7306/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/MCB.00900-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Developmental Links between the Fetal and Adult Zones of the Adrenal Cortex Revealed by Lineage Tracing{triangledown} ,{dagger}

Mohamad Zubair,1,2 Keith L. Parker,2 and Ken-ichirou Morohashi1,3*

Division of Sex Differentiation, National Institute for Basic Biology, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Higashiyama 5-1, Myodaiji-cho, Okazaki 444-8787, Japan,1 Departments of Internal Medicine and Pharmacology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas 75390-8857,2 Department of Molecular Biology, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Maidashi 3-1-1, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan3

Received 6 June 2008/ Returned for modification 4 July 2008/ Accepted 14 September 2008

The nuclear receptor Ad4BP/SF-1 is essential for development of the adrenal cortex and the gonads, which derive from a common adrenogonadal primordium. The adrenal cortex subsequently forms morphologically distinct compartments: the inner (fetal) and outer (definitive or adult) zones. Despite considerable effort, the mechanisms that mediate the differential development of the adrenal and gonadal primordia and the fetal and adult adrenal cortices remain incompletely understood. We previously identified a fetal adrenal-specific enhancer (FAdE) in the Ad4BP/SF-1 locus that directs transgene expression to the fetal adrenal cortex and demonstrated that this enhancer is autoregulated by Ad4BP/SF-1. We now combine the FAdE with the Cre/loxP system to trace cell lineages in which the FAdE was active at some stage in development. These lineage-tracing studies establish definitively that the adult cortex derives from precursor cells in the fetal cortex in which the FAdE was activated before the organization into two distinct zones. The potential of these fetal adrenocortical cells to enter the pathway that eventuates in cells of the adult cortex disappeared by embryonic day 14.5. Thus, these studies demonstrate a direct link between the fetal and adult cortices involving a transition that must occur before a specific stage of development.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Maidashi 3-1-1, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan. Phone: 092-642-6180. Fax: 092-642-6181. E-mail: moro{at}cell.med.kyushu-u.ac.jp

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 22 September 2008.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://mcb.asm.org/.

Molecular and Cellular Biology, December 2008, p. 7030-7040, Vol. 28, No. 23
0270-7306/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/MCB.00900-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Zubair, M., Oka, S., Parker, K. L., Morohashi, K.-i. (2009). Transgenic Expression of Ad4BP/SF-1 in Fetal Adrenal Progenitor Cells Leads to Ectopic Adrenal Formation. Mol. Endocrinol. 23: 1657-1667 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Kim, A. C., Barlaskar, F. M., Heaton, J. H., Else, T., Kelly, V. R., Krill, K. T., Scheys, J. O., Simon, D. P., Trovato, A., Yang, W.-H., Hammer, G. D. (2009). In Search of Adrenocortical Stem and Progenitor Cells. Endocr. Rev. 30: 241-263 [Abstract] [Full Text]  


Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology.   For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»