Spatio-temporal expression of a novel neuron-derived neurotrophic factor (NDNF) in mouse brains during development.

Background: Neuron-derived neurotrophic factor (NDNF) is evolutionarily well conserved, being present in invertebrate animals such as the nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, as well as in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Multiple cysteines are conserved between species and secondary structure prediction shows that NDNF is mainly composed of beta-strands. In this study, we aimed to investigate the function of NDNF.