Snow Brand Milk Products Co., Ltd.

Mio Imamura

Morimasa Tanimoto

Yasuharu Itagaki

A novel primer is provided which is useful in the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction to amplify &agr;,-casein gene and keratin gene contained in milk. A method is also provided for using the expression ratio of their genes to examine the pathological conditions of mammalian mastitis or determine the milk protein synthesis level in mammary gland cells. The method is quick and accurate and avoids the need for excising mammary gland tissue.

Method for determining mastitis using keratin and casein which are amplified by primers

The present invention relates to a method of synchronizing epithelial cells into G.sub.0 phase, more specifically, a method of synchronizing epithelial cells into G.sub.0 phase characterized by culturing the cells in a synthetic medium for 5 days or more, wherein said synthetic medium is a medium with the lowered concentration of bovine fetal serum 5% or less and said epithelial cells is bovine mammary gland cells. Further, the present invention relates to a method of culturing cells characterized by using G.sub.0 phase synchronized cells obtained by the present invention, and a method of screening a related to differentiation and/or maturation of said cells by using G.sub.0 phase synchronized cells. The present invention is useful for easily synchronizing epithelial cells into G.sub.0 phase and for screening a factor related to differentiation and/or maturation of epithelial cells.

Growing community of inventors

Hokkaido, Japan

Mio Imamura