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Blood, 1 May 2004, Vol. 103, No. 9, pp. 3320-3325. Prepublished online as a Blood First Edition Paper on December 30, 2003; DOI 10.1182/blood-2003-02-0352.
HEMATOPOIESIS Essential role of HGF (hepatocyte growth factor) in blood formation in XenopusFrom the Division of Gene Therapy Science, the Division of Clinical Gene Therapy, the Division of Biochemistry, the Department of Oncology, and the Department of Geriatric Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Japan.
In this study, we investigated the role of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) in blood formation during Xenopus development. First, we examined the gene expression of HGF and its receptor, c-met, by whole-mount in situ hybridization during development. Strong signals of HGF as well as c-met were detected early in the developing ventral mesoderm, which later gives rise to the ventral blood island. Furthermore, to study the role of HGF, we blocked the HGF signaling pathway in Xenopus embryos by using truncated c-met lacking the tyrosine kinase domain. Injection of truncated c-met mRNA resulted in a marked decrease in the number of circulating blood cells. Similar results were obtained using morpholino antisense HGF oligonucleotides. Moreover, we also analyzed the expression of several early primitive blood markers in the blood island of these embryos. RNA in situ analysis revealed a significant reduction (or absence) of stem cell leukemia (SCL),
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