Temporal transcriptional profiling of somatic and germ cells reveals biased lineage priming of sexual fate in the fetal mouse gonad.

ABSTRACT: The divergence of distinct cell populations from multipotent progenitors is poorly understood, particularly in vivo. The gonad is an ideal place to study this process, because it originates as a bipotential primordium where multiple distinct lineages acquire sex-specific fates as the organ differentiates as a testis or an ovary. To gain a more detailed understanding of the process of gonadal differentiation at the level of the individual cell populations, we conducted microarrays on sorted cells from XX and XY mouse gonads at three time points spanning the period when the gonadal cells transition from sexually undifferentiated progenitors to their respective sex-specific fates. We analyzed supporting cells, interstitial/stromal cells, germ cells, and endothelial cells. This work identified

SUBMITTER: Jameson SA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3305395 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature