Gene expression throughout a vertebrate's embryogenesis

Abstract

BackgroundDescribing the patterns of gene expression during embryonic development has broadened our understanding of the processes and patterns that define morphogenesis. Yet gene expression patterns have not been described throughout vertebrate embryogenesis. This study presents statistical analyses of gene expression during all 40 developmental stages in the teleost Fundulus heteroclitus using four biological replicates per stage.ResultsPatterns of gene expression for 7,000 genes appear to be important as they recapitulate developmental timing. Among the 45% of genes with significant expression differences between pairs of temporally adjacent stages, significant differences in gene expression vary from as few as five to more than 660. Five adjacent stages have disproportionately more significant changes in gene expression (> 200 genes) relative to other stages: four to eight and eight to sixteen cell stages, onset of circulation, pre and post-hatch, and during complete yolk absorption. The fewest differences among adjacent stages occur during gastrulation. Yet, at stage 16, (pre-mid-gastrulation) the largest number of genes has peak expression. This stage has an over representation of genes in oxidative respiration and protein expression (ribosomes, translational genes and proteases). Unexpectedly, among all ribosomal genes, both strong positive and negative correlations occur. Similar correlated patterns of expression occur among all significant genes.ConclusionsThese data provide statistical support for the temporal dynamics of developmental gene expression during all stages of vertebrate development.

Effects of Anthropogenic Pollution on the Oxidative Phosphorylation Pathway of Hepatocytes from Natural Populations of Fundulus heteroclitus

“…(Incardona et al, 2012), biomarkers of xenobiotic exposure such as CYP1A inducibility and DNA damage (Jewett et al, 2002;Jung et al, 2011;Raphael et al, 2014), xenobiotic metabolism in vivo (e. g., the aryl hydrocarbon receptor pathway (Bello et al, 2001;Denison and Nagy 2003;Hahn et al, 2004)), altered gene expression (Leaver et al, 2010) (Fisher and Oleksiak 2007;Bozinovic et al 2011;Oleksiak et al 2011;Garcia et al 2012;Bozinovic et al 2013), and genotypic effects Oleksiak, 2008, 2011a,b). Those studies investigated pollution's influences on natural populations at molecular, biological, and ecological levels and helped to elucidate evolved tolerance in polluted populations.…”

Transcriptomic Characterization of the Larval Stage in Gilthead Seabream (Sparus aurata) by 454 Pyrosequencing

“…To date, only limited genomic and transcriptomic studies on fish embryos and yolksac larvae have been conducted in a few teleost fish species: in zebrafish, Danio rerio, (Packham et al 2009;Ton et al 2002), in gilthead seabream (Ferrareso et al 2008;Sarropoulou et al 2005b), in cod (Drivenes et al 2012;Johansen et al 2011) and in the marine killifish, Fundulus heteroclitus, (Bozinovic et al 2011). To our knowledge, only the EST collections generated for halibut (Douglas et al 2007) and…”

The developmental transcriptome of contrasting Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) morphs

“…Filteau et al (2013) 18 found that a set of coexpressed genes differentiated the two whitefish morphotypes, implicating Bone morphogenesis protein (BMP) signaling in the development of ecological differences in tropic morphology. One approach to identify pathways related to function or morphological differences is to study gene expression during development 19, 20 .…”