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 J Vet Sci. 2009 Jun;10(2):105-113
DOI: 10.4142/jvs.2009.10.2.105
  
 

Low dietary inorganic phosphate affects the lung growth of developing mice

Cheng-Xiong Xu1, Hua Jin1, Youn-Sun Chung1, Ji-Young Shin1, Soon-Kyung Hwang1, Jung-Taek Kwon1, Sung-Jin Park1, Eun-Sun Lee1, Arash Minai-Tehrani1, Seung-Hee Chang1,2, Min-Ah Woo1,2, Mi-Suk Noh1,2, Gil-Hwan An3, Kee-Ho Lee4, Myung-Haing Cho1,2,*

 

1Laboratory of Toxicology, College of Veterinary Medicine, and 2Nano Systems Institute-National Core Research Center, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, Korea
3Department of Food Science and Technology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 305-764, Korea
4Laboratory of Molecular Oncology, Division of Radiation Cancer Research, Korea Institute of Radiological and Medical Sciences, Seoul 139-240, Korea

* mchotox@snu.ac.kr

 

Inorganic phosphate (Pi) plays a critical role in diverse cellular functions, and regulating the Pi balance is accomplished by sodium-dependent Pi co-transporter (NPT). Pulmonary NPT has recently been identified in mammalian lungs. However, to date, many of the studies that have involved Pi have mainly focused on its effect on bone and kidney. Therefore, current study was performed to discover the potential effects of low Pi on the lung of developing transgenic mice expressing the renilla/firefly luciferase dual reporter gene. Two-weeks old male mice divided into 2 groups and these groups were fed either a low PI diet or a normal control diet (normal: 0.5% Pi, low: 0.1% Pi) for 4 weeks. After 4 weeks of the diet, all the mice were sacrificed. Their lungs were harvested and analyzed by performing luciferase assay, Western blotting, kinase assay and immunohistochemistry. Our results demonstrate that low Pi affects the lungs of developing mice by disturbing protein translation, the cell cycle and the expression of fibroblast growth factor-2. These results suggest that optimally regulating Pi consumption may be important to maintain health.