Gene expression atlas for human embryogenesis.
Human embryogenesis is believed to involve an integrated set of complex yet coordinated development of different organs and tissues mediated by the changes in the spatiotemporal expression of many genes. Here, we report a genome-wide expression analysis during wk 4-9 of human embryogenesis, a critical period when most organs develop. About half of all human genes are expressed, and 18.6% of the expressed genes were significantly regulated during this important period. We further identified >5000 regulated genes, most of which previously were not known to be associated with animal development. Our study fills an important gap in mammalian developmental studies by identifying functional pathways involved in this critical but previously not studied period. Our study also revealed that the genes involved here are distinct from those during early embryogenesis, which include three groups of maternal genes. Furthermore, we discovered that genes in a given developmental process are regulated coordinately. This led us to develop an easily searchable database of this entire collection of gene expression profiles, allowing for the identification new genes important for a particular developmental process/pathway and deducing the potential function of a novel gene. The validity of the predictions from the database was demonstrated with two examples through spatiotemporal analyses of the two novel genes. Such a database should serve as a highly valuable resource for the molecular analysis of human development and pathogenesis.
Yi
Hong
H
State Key Laboratory of Virology, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, P.R. China.
Xue
Lu
L
Guo
Ming-Xiong
MX
Ma
Jian
J
Zeng
Yan
Y
Wang
Wei
W
Cai
Jin-Yang
JY
Hu
Hai-Ming
HM
Shu
Hong-Bing
HB
Shi
Yun-Bo
YB
Li
Wen-Xin
WX
D047108:Embryonic Development / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction