Anti-CDKN1C monoclonal antibody, clone FQ3829(3)

Skeletal muscle development requires the coordinated expression of numerous transcription factors to control the specification of the muscle fate in mesodermal cells and the differentiation of the committed myoblasts into functional contractile fibers. The bHLH transcription factor MyoD plays a key role in these processes, since its forced expression is sufficient to induce the myogenesis in a variety of non-muscle cells in culture. Consistent with this observation, the majority of skeletal muscle genes require MyoD to activate their own transcription. In order to identify novel MyoD-target genes we generated C2C12 MyoD-silenced clones, and used a muscle-specific cDNA microarray to study the induced modifications of the transcriptional profile. Gene expression was analyzed at three different stages in differentiating MyoD(-)C2C12 myoblasts. These microarray data sets identified many additional uncharacterized downstream MyoD transcripts that may play important functions in muscle cell differentiation. Among these genes, we concentrated our study on the cell cycle regulators Cdkn1c and calcyclin and on the muscle-specific putative myogenic regulator Ankrd2. Bioinformatic and functional studies on the promoters of these genes clarified their dependence on MyoD activity Clues of other regulatory mechanisms that might interact with the principal bHLH transcription factor have been revealed by the unexpected up-regulation in MyoD(-) cells of these novel (and other) target transcripts, at the differentiation stage in which MyoD became normally down-regulated. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

We report on a child with prenatal onset of overgrowth associated with thick, excessive wrinkled skin and other abnormalities including cleft palate, Chiari malformation and polymicrogyria. His clinical features do not resemble any of the known reported overgrowth syndromes. Genetic evaluations, including karyotype, oligoarray, methylation-sensitive multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) for 11p11.2 region, CDKN1C sequencing, GPC3 sequencing and dosage analysis, and HRAS sequencing, have been un-revealing. Immunohistochemistry done on the patient's cultured skin fibroblasts showed normally assembled elastic fibers and normal pattern of chondroitin sulfate deposition with defective deposition of Collagen I fibers. In addition, there were high levels of immuno-detectable metalloproteinase 3 (MMP3) and undetectable tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase 1 (TIMP1). The defective collagen deposition in the fibroblast culture could be reversed by the broad spectrum MMP inhibitor, doxycycline. We also present evidence that the fibroblasts of this patient have an increased rate of cellular proliferation. We propose that this is a previously unrecognized overgrowth syndrome associated with increased cellular proliferation and defective collagen I deposition due to an imbalance between MMP and TIMP in fibroblasts. (C) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.