GSE129742
Transcription profiles of oocytes during maturation and embryos during preimplantation development in vivo in the goat
Preimplantation embryonic development is a dynamic, complex and precise regulated process to govern embryonic development and maintain embryo viability. The complete dynamics transcriptional activities during preimplantation development in the important domestic species goat is not available. Here, we performed RNA sequencing to establish a comprehensive transcriptional profiling of goat in vivo matured oocytes and preimplantation embryos. We found that the embryonic genome activation (EGA) in goat occurs at 16-cell stages, not previously defined at 8-cell stage, and showed much later EGA process compared to all other mammalian species. A total of 6,482 genes were identified to be significantly differentially expressed across all consecutive developmental stage comparisons and the important signaling pathways involved in each development transition were revealed. Additionally, we identified genes that appear to be transcribed only in a specific stage of development. Using weighted gene co-expression network analysis, we found 9 stage-specific modules of co-expressed genes that can be used to represent the corresponding stage of development. Furthermore, we identified conserved key members (or hub genes) of the goat expressed gene networks. Their vast association with other embryonic genes suggests that they may have important regulatory roles in embryo development. Our cross-mammalian species transcriptomic comparisons demarcated both conserved and goat specific features of preimplantation development. Overall design: RNA-Seq profiles from in vivo matured oocytes and in vivo developed embryos from the 2-cell to the blastocyst stages generated by RNA sequencing