为探讨ERb在小鼠胚胎发育过程中的表达, 首先设计ERb引物并扩增ERb基因片段, 构建ERb/pGEM-3Z重组质粒进行克隆, 分别用EcoRⅠ和HindⅢ进行酶切得到线性化DNA片段, 以Sp6和T7聚合酶合成地高辛标记的(dig )正、反义RNA探针。然后通过胚胎整体原位杂交技术分析ERb 在小鼠胚胎中的表达。运用该探针检测到ERb 基因在10.5 dpc胚胎的脑、脊神经管、生殖脊、心包、肢芽及颌弓部位表达, 在13.5 dpc胚胎的端脑、中脑、延髓、脊髓、肢芽中表达。推测ERb基因可能在小鼠胚胎性别分化过程中起调节作用; 可能在小鼠胚胎神经管的早期区域化过程中起作用并在3个原始脑泡进一步分化及脊髓的分化过程中起作用; 可能在小鼠胚胎肢芽中的骨与软骨的形成与分化中起调控作用; 可能在小鼠胚胎心脏发育过程中起作用, 可能在小鼠胚胎颌弓的表面分化过程中起调控作用。

In order to study the expression and regulation effects of estrogen receptor-β (ERβ) in the development of mouse embryo, the primer of ERβ was designed, the ERβ fragment was first obtained by RT-PCR and subcloned into plasmids
pGEM- 3Z, then the recombinant plasmids were linearized with the restriction enzymes of EcoRⅠand HindⅢ. Using Sp6
and T7 RNA polymerase, the digoxigenin(dig) labeled sense and anti-sense probes were transcriped in vitro, respectively. Then the expression of ERβ in mouse embryo was examined with the probes by whole-mount in situ hybridization. The results indicated that ERβ is expressed in the brain, spinal neural tube, genital ridge, pericardium, limb bud and mandibular arch of 10.5 dpc embryo, and is also expressed in the telencephalon, mesencephalon, medulla oblongata, spinal cord and
limb bud of 13.5 dpc embryo. These results suggest that ERβ maybe play a role of regulation in sexual differentiation, pri-mal differentiation of neural tube, further differentiation of three primary cerebral vesicles and spinal cord, generation and differentiation of bone and cartilage of limb bud, development of pericardium and configuration differentiation of mandibu-lar in mouse embryo.