A Genome-Wide Study of Gene Activity Reveals Developmental Signaling Pathways in the Preimplantation Mouse Embryo

The preimplantation development of the mammalian embryo encompasses a series of critical events: the transition from oocyte to embryo, the first cell divisions, the establishment of cellular contacts, the first lineage differentiation—all the first subtle steps toward a future body plan. Here, we use microarrays to explore gene activity during preimplantation development. We reveal robust and dynamic patterns of stage-specific gene activity that fall into two major phases, one up to the 2-cell stage (oocyte-to-embryo transition) and one after the 4-cell stage (cellular differentiation). The mouse oocyte and early embryo express components of multiple signaling pathways including those downstream of Wnt, BMP, and Notch, indicating that conserved regulators of cell fate and pattern formation are likely to function at the earliest embryonic stages. Overall, these data provide a detailed temporal profile of gene expression that reveals the richness of signaling processes in early mammalian development. ; © 2004 Cell Press. Under an Elsevier user license. Received 11 November 2003, Revised 17 December 2003, Accepted 17 December 2003, Available online 15 January 2004. This work was supported by NIH grant to R.W.D., and a Wellcome Trust project grant and Senior research fellowship to M.Z.-G. M.P.S. is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. K.P. is a recipient of Marie Curie fellowship. We thank Randall Moon for β-catenin-GFP construct, Emma Cadwell for help with embryo collections, the Marco Conti lab for help with immunostaining of ovarian sections, David Glover, Karin Lykke-Andersen, Lars Steinmetz, Adam Deutschbauer, Tavvi Neklesa, and Jed Dean for comments, and Wenzhong Xiao for discussions. ; Supplemental Material - 1-s2.0-S1534580703004040-mmc1.doc Supplemental Material - 1-s2.0-S1534580703004040-mmc2.doc Supplemental Material - 1-s2.0-S1534580703004040-mmc3.doc Supplemental Material - 1-s2.0-S1534580703004040-mmc4.doc Supplemental Material - 1-s2.0-S1534580703004040-mmc5.doc Supplemental ...