Project description:In amphibian embryo, the animal cap explants treated with activin A, which is a member of TGF-β family protein, have a potent of Spemann-Mangold organizer-like activities, leading the induction of mesendodermal tissue. We report the temporal RNA expression profile of the mesendodermal cell lineage induced by activin A to Xenopus animal cap explants, which have multipotency. Depending on the duration of activin A treatment to animal cap, dynamic changes of gene expressions were observed. Overview of samples: As the sample for RNA-seq, animal cap explants from Xenopus blastulas (stage 8.5) were cultured in activin A solution (50 ng/mL) for 1, 3, 6, and 9 hours (Post 1h_, Post_3h_, Post 6h_, and Post 9h_activin), and activin A-untreated control (Pre_activin) were also prepared. Results: We first tested the principal component analysis (PCA) for gene expression at individual time points, and found that three biological replicates of individual time points made clusters together. To compare the gene expression between activin A-treated and -untreated samples, we then visualized gene expression of 45099 annotated genes. The heat map visualization showed the distinct clusters between individual time points, and also revealed the significant changes of gene expression levels depending on the duration of activin A treatment. Analysis for differentially expressed genes (DEGs) (fold change >2 with false discovery rate at p<0.05) showed upregulated and downregulated genes by activin A treatment, in comparison with Pre_activin sample. Gene number of upregulated (up), downregulated (down) genes, and treatment time of activin A were described as follows; 2573 (up), 111 (down), 1h; 4149 (up), 1901 (down), 3h; 6323 (up), 4704 (down), 6h; 8858 (up), 6008 (down), 9h. From the data set of analysis for enriched Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway, we assessed the molecular functions and signaling pathway of upregulated DEGs at each time point of activin A treatment, in comparison with Pre_activin sample. Conclusions: Regarding the temporal expression of organizer genes such as goosecoid (gsc), orthodenticle homeobox 2 (otx2) and chordin (chrd), our transcriptome data using mesendodermal cells derived from animal cap explants was correlated with previous findings using mesendodermal region from Xenopus embryos. Our transcriptome data from animal cap assay may cover the transition of gene expression from undifferentiated cells to mesendodermal tissue during the normal early development.

Project description:The goal of this study is to investigate the molecular mechanism of lhx1 on regulation of pronephros formation during the early embryonic development. In the vertebrate embryo the kidney is derived from the intermediate mesoderm. The LIM-class homeobox transcription factor lhx1 is expressed early in the intermediate mesoderm and is one of the first genes to be expressed in the nephric mesenchyme. The animal cap cells can be induced by treatment of activin and retinoic acid to differentiate into pronephros tissue. In this study we investigated the role of Lhx1 in differentiation of pronephros by depleting lhx1 in the organ culture system. We generated the gene expression profile of early pronephros tissue, and demonstrated that expression of genes from all the kidney domains is affected by the absence of lhx1. Taken together our results highlight an essential role for Lhx1 in pronephros formation. lhx1 is involved in driving specification of intermediate mesoderm into nephrogenic mesenchyme. Lhx1 is initially expressed throughout the entire intermediate mesoderm. To determine the role of lhx1 pronephros formation, we performed a microarray analysis using an explant culture system. Xenopus tissue explants can be surgically isolated and cultured under specific conditions to be driven towards many distinct tissue types. Formation of pronephric cell fates is induced by culturing isolated explants in the presence of Activin and RA (AcRA). Treatment of dissected explants of stage 9 blastulae embryos with 10ng/ml Activin and 1x10-4 M retinoic acid can induce differentiation of the pluripotent ectoderm into pan-kidney tissue. For this experiment, both blastomeres of 2-cell embryos were injected with a total of 800pg lhx1 DEED-AS. Explants were dissected and treated with AcRA and expression of pax8 at stage 15 (based on timing of paired control whole embryos) was analyzed. We observed a lack of induction of pax8 expression in lhx1-depleted explants under AcRA treatment conditions in which expression of this gene is normally induced. Based on this observation, microarray analysis was carried out to identify genes whose expression is affected by the absence of lhx1. Explants of injected embryos with 800pg of lhx1 DEED-AS were dissected, treated with pronephric tissue inductive conditions (AcRA) and harvested after 24 hours incubation at 14C (Fig. S5B). The sibling control embryos reached stage 12.5. Explants from uninjected embryos +AcRA and -AcRA as well as explants from DEED injected embryos -AcRA were also harvested. Approximately 12 caps were pooled for each RNA preparation and the analysis was performed using triplicates.

Project description:Studies on the early embryonic development of Xenopus laevis contributed much to the understanding of vertebrate patterning. Gastrula stages are of particular interest because establishment of the axis and germ layer formation take place during these stages. While many genes belonging to several signaling pathways including FGF, Wnt and TGF-beta, have been implicated in patterning the gastrula embryo, the hierarchical interactions between these factors are incompletely known. To study this question, we took advantage of microarray technology to create a regional gene expression profile for the Xenopus gastrula. Stage 10 Xenopus embryos were dissected into four portions. The dorsal marginal zone including the blastopore and some ectoderm and dorsal yolk plug, composed mostly of endomesoderm; the ventral marginal zone, also containing a portion of the yolk plug; the animal cap, dissected just above the floor of the blastocoel; and the vegetal region, composed of the central part of the yolk plug. To avoid possible cross contamination that might blur the microrarray data, thin junctional regions between the explants were removed. The dissected explants were homogenized in Stat 60 (TEL TEST), RNA was precipitated by isopropanol, treated with DNase I, and purified using the RNeasy kit (Qiagen). Biotinylated probe was prepared from 100 ng total RNA using the OVATION RNA amplification system (Nugen Technologies, Inc). The probes were hybridized to Affymetrix Xenopus Chips containing features that represent about 15,000 genes according to the manufactureâs instructions. Hybridized arrays were further processed by the GeneChip Fluidics system (Affymetrix), and signals were detected by the GeneChip Scanner (Affymetrix). Gene expression profiles were analyzed by the GCOS software (Affymetrix). The analysis showed that 100 transcripts were enriched in the dorsal explant (dorsal vs. ventral, signal log2 ratio>1.5), including the known dorsal markers Chordin, gsc, Admp; 90 transcripts were enriched in the ventral explant (ventral vs. dorsal, signal log2 ratio>1.5) including Sizzled, bambi, PV.1; 449 transcripts were enriched in the vegetal explant (vegetal vs. dorsal, vegetal vs. ventral, vegetal vs. animal cap, all signal log2 ratio>1.5), including Mixer, Sox17ï¡.; 70 transcripts were enriched in the animal cap (animal cap vs. vegetal, signal log2 ratio>1.5; animal cap vs. dorsal, signal log2 ratio>1; animal cap vs. ventral, signal log2 ratio>1) including Epidermal type I cytokeratin and forkhead-2. RT-PCR was used to check the enrichment of some of the unknown genes; the enrichment of 8 of 9 ventral genes, and 9 of 12 dorsal genes was confirmed in these experiments. Experiment Overall Design: Ceate a regional gene expression profile in Xenopus gastrula, and predict gene expression pattern by comparing gene expression in different explant.

Project description:Studies on the early embryonic development of Xenopus laevis contributed much to the understanding of vertebrate patterning. Gastrula stages are of particular interest because establishment of the axis and germ layer formation take place during these stages. While many genes belonging to several signaling pathways including FGF, Wnt and TGF-beta, have been implicated in patterning the gastrula embryo, the hierarchical interactions between these factors are incompletely known. To study this question, we took advantage of microarray technology to create a regional gene expression profile for the Xenopus gastrula. Stage 10 Xenopus embryos were dissected into four portions. The dorsal marginal zone including the blastopore and some ectoderm and dorsal yolk plug, composed mostly of endomesoderm; the ventral marginal zone, also containing a portion of the yolk plug; the animal cap, dissected just above the floor of the blastocoel; and the vegetal region, composed of the central part of the yolk plug. To avoid possible cross contamination that might blur the microrarray data, thin junctional regions between the explants were removed. The dissected explants were homogenized in Stat 60 (TEL TEST), RNA was precipitated by isopropanol, treated with DNase I, and purified using the RNeasy kit (Qiagen). Biotinylated probe was prepared from 100 ng total RNA using the OVATION RNA amplification system (Nugen Technologies, Inc). The probes were hybridized to Affymetrix Xenopus Chips containing features that represent about 15,000 genes according to the manufacture’s instructions. Hybridized arrays were further processed by the GeneChip Fluidics system (Affymetrix), and signals were detected by the GeneChip Scanner (Affymetrix). Gene expression profiles were analyzed by the GCOS software (Affymetrix). The analysis showed that 100 transcripts were enriched in the dorsal explant (dorsal vs. ventral, signal log2 ratio>1.5), including the known dorsal markers Chordin, gsc, Admp; 90 transcripts were enriched in the ventral explant (ventral vs. dorsal, signal log2 ratio>1.5) including Sizzled, bambi, PV.1; 449 transcripts were enriched in the vegetal explant (vegetal vs. dorsal, vegetal vs. ventral, vegetal vs. animal cap, all signal log2 ratio>1.5), including Mixer, Sox17; 70 transcripts were enriched in the animal cap (animal cap vs. vegetal, signal log2 ratio>1.5; animal cap vs. dorsal, signal log2 ratio>1; animal cap vs. ventral, signal log2 ratio>1) including Epidermal type I cytokeratin and forkhead-2. RT-PCR was used to check the enrichment of some of the unknown genes; the enrichment of 8 of 9 ventral genes, and 9 of 12 dorsal genes was confirmed in these experiments. Keywords: Xenopus, gastrula, explant, gene expression, embryonic, gene regulation

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