Scientific background: |
VGF (VGF, Nerve Growth Factor-Inducible), is a protein and neuropeptide that may play a role in regulating energy homeostasis, metabolism. Canu et al. (1997) noted that rat Vgf encodes a predicted 70-kD polypeptide that shares similarities with the secretogranin/chromogranin family and is found in the secretory granules of subsets of neurons and endocrine cells. By fluorescence in situ hybridization, Canu et al. (1997) assigned the VGF gene to 7q22. Canu et al. (1997) demonstrated that the single-copy human VGF gene spans 6 kb of genomic DNA and contains 2 exons. The entire VGF protein is encoded by exon 2, while exon 1 contains only 5-prime untranslated sequence. The structural organization of the human gene is similar to that described for the rat VGF gene (Salton et al., 1991), and both the translated and the untranslated regions show a high degree of sequence homology to the rat gene. |
References: |
1. Canu, N., Possenti, R., Ricco, A. S., Rocchi, M., Levi, A. Cloning, structural organization analysis, and chromosomal assignment of the human gene for the neurosecretory protein VGF. Genomics 45: 443-446, 1997.
2. Hunsberger, J. G., Newton, S. S., Bennett, A. H., Duman, C. H., Russell, D. S., Salton, S. R., Duman, R. S. Antidepressant actions of the exercise-regulated gene VGF. Nature Med. 13: 1476-1482, 2007.
3. Salton, S. R. J., Fischberg, D. J., Dong, K. W. Structure of the gene encoding VGF, a nervous system-specific mRNA that is rapidly and selectively induced by nerve growth factor in PC12 cells. Molec. Cell. Biol. 11: 2335-2349, 1991.
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