[Preliminary study on expression of oviductin in mouse cervix]

In the present study,in order to investigate the pattern of the expression and location of oviductin using RT-PCR and Western blot,a 410bp cDNA fragment was amplified from mouse cervix tissue. Sequencing analysis and homology comparison with BLAST alignment showed that this fragment amplified from mouse cervix was homologous to the region from +310 to +714 of the mouse OGP gene in Genebank by the degree up to 100%. Western blot showed 60 KD and 30 KD components from mouse cervix same as those from mouse oviduct mucosa epithelium. Semi-quantitative RT-PCR analysis showed that expression of OGP was significantly higher at the estrous stage than that of non-estrous stage and almost no expression in the immature mouse. Those results suggest that the mRNA level of mouse cervix oviductin was related to estrous cycle,implied with estrogen-dependence. To further confirm the results,in situ hybridization histochemistry analysis showed that OGP mRNA was expressed at columnar epithelium of mouse cervix. To clarify the possible significance of oviductin expressed at the cervix, the function of oviductin on the mobility of human sperm was studied using "loss-of-function". The VAP, VCL, ALH, VSL showed no significant differences of the mobility of the human sperm in the conditioned medium blocked by the anti-CTP rOGP (rabbit Oviductin) antiserum compared with that in the conditioned medium of the normal rabbit serum. These results suggest that rOGP may not affect the mobility of human sperm in vitro.