Project description:Somitogenesis is the segmentation of the developing embryonic body axis into somites and is guided by oscillating genes, which create waves of expression that travel across the presomitic mesoderm (PSM) from posterior to anterior. Upon arrival of a wave at the PSM's anterior end, a new somite is formed. To identify genes that are expressed in a wave-like pattern we dissected the PSM of four different mouse embryos (pre-turned), separated the left and right sides, and divided each into five segments, from posterior to anterior (sampling sites 1 to 5). Each segment was used to construct libraries for high-throughput RNA-sequencing. For one embryo, we also sequenced two somites.
Project description:The role of the hippocampus in learning and memory has been widely studied. However, studies of differences along the longitudinal axis indicate that the hippocampus is perhaps not a singular structure, but instead it is thought that the dorsal and ventral poles of the hippocampus have functional differences. An anatomical gradient of hippocampal inputs along the dorsal-ventral axis supports this notion. It has been recently shown that there is transcriptional differentiation along the longitudinal axis of the adult hippocampus, coinciding with functional and anatomical gradients. Understanding the development of the dorsal-ventral hippocampal axis will further our understanding of the different hippocmapal functional contributions along the longitudinal axis. However, analysis of transcriptional gradients along the dorsal ventral axis have not been studied in the neonatal rat during development. We performed an extensive bead-chip based geneome-wide analysis of transcriptional differences in dorsal, intermediate, and ventral hippocampal tissue of rats aged postnatal day 0 (P0), P9, P18 and P60.
Project description:Female fertility in mammals requires the iterative remodeling of the entire adult female reproductive tract across the menstrual/estrous cycle. Here we examine global transcriptional dynamics of the mouse oviduct along the anteroposterior axis and across the estrous cycle. Though we observed robust patterns of differential oviduct gene expression along the anteroposterior axis, we found surprisingly few changes in gene expression across the estrous cycle, in marked contrast to other mammals. We speculate that this is an evolutionarily derived state that may reflect the extremely rapid five-day mouse estrous cycle.
Project description:Understanding how brains evolved is critical to determine the origin(s) of centralized nervous systems. Brains are patterned along their anteroposterior axis by stripes of gene expression that appear to be conserved, suggesting brains are homologous. However, the striped expression is also part of the deeply conserved anteroposterior axial program. An emerging hypothesis is that similarities in brain patterning are convergent, arising through the repeated co-option of axial programs. To resolve whether shared brain neurogenic programs likely reflect convergence or homology, we investigated the evolution of axial programs in neurogenesis. We show that the bilaterian anteroposterior program patterns the nerve net of the cnidarian Nematostella along the oral-aboral axis arguing that anteroposterior programs regionalized developing nervous systems in the cnidarian-bilaterian common ancestor prior to the emergence of brains. This finding rejects shared patterning as sufficient evidence to support brain homology and provides functional support for the plausibility that axial programs could be co-opted if nervous systems centralized in multiple lineages
Project description:Mutating esc (extra sex-combs), maternal and zygotic, leads to loss of H3K27me3 and affects Hox-patterning along the AP-axis in neurogenesis
Project description:We combined cryosectining of oocytes along the animal-vegetal axis (first developmental axis) and RNA-Seq to determine localization profiles of coding and noncoding RNAs. It provides complete view on RNA localization. We found that nearly all RNAs are localized, but only small percentage is actively transported during oogenesis.