Expression analyses of polo-like kinase 4 (Plk4), a gene product responsible for autosomal recessive microcephaly and Seckel syndrome, during mouse brain development.

Plk4 (polo-like kinase 4) is a Ser/Thr-kinase which plays a central role in centriole duplication during the cell cycle. PLK4 gene abnormalities are responsible for autosomal recessive chorioretinopathy-microcephaly syndrome and Seckel syndrome. In this study, we performed expression analyses of Plk4 by focusing on mouse brain development. Western blotting analyses revealed that Plk4 with a molecular mass of ~100 kDa was broadly expressed in adult mouse tissues with specific subcellular distribution. As to the central nervous sytem, Plk4 was expressed throughout the developmental process with drastic increase after P15, suggesting an essential role of Plk4 in differentiated neurons. In immunohistochemical analyses with mouse brain at embryonic day 14, Plk4 was detected dominantly at the cell-cell contact sites of neuronal progenitors in the ventricular zone. Plk4 was then diffusely distributed in the cell body of cortical neurons at P7 while it was enriched in the neuropil as well as soma of excitatory neurons in cerebral cortex and hippocampus, and Purkinje cells in the cerebellum at P30. Notably, biochemical fractionation analysis found an enrichment of Plk4 in the post-synaptic density fraction. Then, immunofluorescent analyses showed partial co-localization of Plk4 with excitatory synaptic markers, PSD-95 and synaptophysin, in differentiated primary cultured hippocampal neurons. These results suggest that Plk4 takes part in the regulation of synaptic function in differentiated neurons.