Expression of c‐myc and c‐fos oncogenes in different rat brain regions during postnatal development

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Abstract
We have studied the expression of c‐myc and c‐fos proto‐oncogenes in various areas of the central nervous system during postnatal development, c‐myc mRNA levels increased during the first 5 days and then decreased over the next 15 days in all nervous regions studied, c‐fos mRNA levels changed in a different way in four brain areas. While in cerebral cortex and cerebellum there was a sharp decrease during the first 10 days, in white matter and hypothalamus c‐fos transcript levels remained high during the same period, decreasing at a later stage.Changes in oncogenes mRNA levels are related to various developmental events, such as neurite growth, myelination and cell proliferation. The dissimilar patterns of c‐myc and c‐fos expression suggests that they play different functions in CNS maturation, c‐myc mRNA levels are temporally related to active neurite growth and to cell proliferation. Changes in c‐fos mRNA correlate in time with early developmental processes and also with those occurring at later stages, such as myelination.