• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
• /
• v.16 no.12
• /
• pp.1837-1841
• /
• 2003

In an attempt to isolate novel molecules that may play a regulatory role in adipocyte differentiation, we devised an experimental strategy to identify adipose tissue-specific genes by modifying cDNA microarray technique. We used genefilter membranes containing approximately 15,000 rat non-redundant EST clones of which 4,000 EST were representative clones of known genes and 11,000 ESTs were uncharacterized clones. A series of hybridization of genefilter membranes with cDNA probes prepared from various rat tissues and nucleic acids sequence analysis allowed us to identify two adipose-tissue specific genes, adipocyte-specific secretory factor (ADSF) and H-rev107. Verification of tissue-specific expression patterns of these two genes by Northern blot analysis showed that ADSF mRNA is exclusive expressed in adipose tissue and the H-rev107 mRNA is predominantly expressed in adipose tissue. Further analysis of gene expression of ADSF and H-rev107 during 3T3-L1 adipocyte differentiation revealed that the ADSF and H-rev107 gene expression patterns are closely associated with the adipocyte differentiation program, indicating their possible role in the regulation of adipose tissue development. Overall, we demonstrated an application of modified cDNA microarray technique in molecular cloning, resulting in identification of two novel adipose tissue-specific genes. This technique will also be used as a useful tool in identifying novel genes expressed in a tissue-specific manner.