Expression of fibronectin during rat fetal and postnatal development: an in situ hybridisation and immunohistochemical study

Abstract

During the development of the fetal rat heart fibronectin gene transcription is active and progressively decreases with age, whereas the translation of the mRNAs into their corresponding proteins is always relatively poor. If fibronectin is involved in fetal and postnatal morphogenesis of the rat myocardium, it is the plasma form (p-FN) that is most probably involved in the process of growth and differentiation of the rat heart.