title: Assessment of difference in gene expression profile between embryos of different derivations.
abstract: Researchers have exerted sustained efforts to improve the viability of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) embryos, testing their experimental designs and probing the resultant embryos. However, the lack of a reliable method to estimate the efficacy of these experimental attempts is a chief hindrance to tackling the low-viability problem in SCNT. Here, we introduce a procedure that assesses the degree of difference in gene expression profiles (GEPs) of blastocysts from each other as a representative control of good quality. We first adapted a multiplex reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction strategy to obtain GEPs for 15 reprogramming-related genes from single mouse blastocysts. GEPs of individual blastocysts displayed a broad range of variations, the extent of which was calculated using a weighted root mean square deviation (wRMSD). wRMSD-based quantitation of GEP difference (qGEP) found that GEP difference between in vivo-derived blastocysts (in vivo) and SCNT blastocysts was greater than the difference between in vivo blastocysts and in vitro-produced (IVP) blastocysts, demonstrating that the SCNT group was more distantly related to the in vivo group than the IVP group. Our qGEP approach for grading individual blastocysts would be useful for selecting a better protocol to derive embryos of better quality prior to field applications.
authors.affiliation: 1 Epigenetics Research Center , KRIBB, Daejeon, 305-806, Korea.
authors.forename: Sujin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kwon
authors.forename: Sangkyun
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jeong
authors.forename: Young Sun
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Jeong
authors.forename: Jung Sun
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Xiang-Shun
authors.initials: XS
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.forename: Nam-Hyung
authors.initials: NH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Yong-Kook
authors.initials: YK
authors.lastname: Kang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001755:Blastocyst / Q000166:cytology*; D046149:Embryo Culture Techniques / Q000662:veterinary*; D005260:Female; D005307:Fertilization in Vitro / Q000662:veterinary*; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D008808:Mice, Inbred CBA; D053652:Nuclear Transfer Techniques / Q000662:veterinary*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D059467:Transcriptome