Xenbase Image ID: 177023

Fig 2 Bighead is a Spemann organizer-secreted protein. (A) RT-PCR assay showing Bighead (BH) expression across different developmental stages. Histone 4 (H4) was used as a loading control. H2O and –RT served as negative controls. (B) In-situ hybridization of Bighead shows its prominent localization in the Spemann organizer in stage 10 whole embryos and stage 10.5–12 hemisected embryos. Note that there is prominent pan-endodermal localization, particularly in nuclei of the superficial yolk plug region. Embryo pictures were taken at 25× magnification. (C) Wild-type Bighead was secreted into the culture medium by transfected HEK293T cells (lane 5), while a mutant Bighead (ΔBighead) lacking the signal peptide was not (lane 6). Tubulin served as a loading control. IB, immunoblot. (D) Crystal structure of myostatin/GDF8 dimer (38), showing in red the C-terminal part of one of its prodomains that may share structural similarities with Bighead. The amino-terminal part of the myostatin prodomain is shown in gray, and the mature growth factor dimer is shown in yellow. (E) Close-up view of the conserved pro-myostatin structural domain, showing that the deletions (cyan) and insertions (yellow) found in Bighead homologs (Dataset S4) fall within loops without perturbing the β-sheet and α-helical structures. Image published in: Ding Y et al. (2018) Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). This image is reproduced with permission of the journal and the copyright holder. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license Larger Image Printer Friendly View

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