differential expression of two different variants of survivin during mouse brain development

introduction: survivin, an inhibitor of apoptosis (iap) containing one baculoviral iap repeat (bir) domain, has been reported to be able to regulate both cellular proliferation and apoptotic cell death. in the present study, we evaluated the differential expression of different variants of survivin during prenatal and postnatal development of brain in mice. material and methods a total of 27 nmri mice were categorized into 9 age groups and brain specimens were obtained accordingly (n=3 per each group): 11 and 17 days embryos and newborn from which the remaining brains were collected by intervals of 5 days up to 1 month of age. total rna was extracted from each brain and reverse transcription was performed by oligo dt and m-mlv enzyme. cdnas were amplified with primers specific for survivin and ?2 microglobulin (as an internal control) via polymerase chain reaction technique. results: we demonstrated that survivin is expressed during both fetal and postnatal development of brain in mice. rt-pcr performed on survivin showed two different variants of survivin with different intensities. the expression of the bigger variant (survivin140) during both prenatal development and at birth was significantly higher than its postnatal one. conclusion: our data suggests that the expression of survivin140 in brain is developmentally regulated; such a regulation may play a role in homeostasis of brain, and in refinement of synapses.