Implication of nucleolar protein SURF6 in ribosome biogenesis and preimplantation mouse development.

The step-wise assembly of a functional nucleolus, which occurs over the first few cell cycles during preimplantation development, is poorly understood. In this study, we examined the function of the evolutionary conserved nucleolar protein SURF6 in preimplantation mouse embryo development. Immunocytochemical analyses revealed that the localization of SURF6 was similar but not identical to those of fibrillarin and B23/nucleophosmin 1, which are involved in rRNA processing and ribosome biogenesis in mammalian somatic cells.