Skip Navigation



Briefings in Functional Genomics Advance Access published online on July 31, 2007
Briefings in Functional Genomics, doi:10.1093/bfgp/elm012
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
6/2/120    most recent
elm012v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Sudheer, S.
Right arrow Articles by Adjaye, J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Sudheer, S.
Right arrow Articles by Adjaye, J.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© Oxford University Press, 2007, All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Functional genomics of human pre-implantation development

Smita Sudheer and James Adjaye

Corresponding author. James Adjaye, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Molecular Embryology and Aging Group, Department of Vertebrate Genomics, Ihnestrasse 73, D-14195 Berlin, Germany. Tel: 0049-30-8413-1203; Fax: 0049-30-8413-1128; E-mail: adjaye{at}molgen.mpg.de

Early mammalian embryogenesis is currently the focus of intense interest because of the potential of inner cell mass-derived embryonic stem cell lines in new therapeutic strategies. As such, creating molecular profiles of gene expression during pre-implantation development will provide a framework for understanding the biological properties of these cells and also establish a tool set for subsequent functional studies. However, a major obstacle impeding progress in this area are moral issues regarding their use, the scarcity of these cells and the ability to successfully isolate and amplify enough mRNA from the minute amounts of total RNA present in these cells. The elucidation, unravelling and understanding the molecular basis of transcriptional control during pre-implantation development is of utmost importance if we are to diagnose, intervene, eliminate or reduce abnormalities associated with growth, disease and infertility by applying assisted reproduction. Importantly, these studies should enhance our knowledge of basic reproductive biology and its application to regenerative medicine.

This review describes the application of in silico-based approaches, in order to obtain maximal information from published microarray-based gene expression data. For an illustration of this, we used gene expression data related to unfertilized oocytes and blastocysts to gain insights into genes and related signalling pathways (e.g. MAPK, PI3K, WNT, TGF-ß) involved in the switch from maternal to embryonic control of gene transcription during human pre-implantation development.

Keywords: Human, pre-implantation development, gene expression, oocytes, blastocysts, microarrays, bioinformatics, functional genomics, signalling pathways


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
W. A. Kues, S. Sudheer, D. Herrmann, J. W. Carnwath, V. Havlicek, U. Besenfelder, H. Lehrach, J. Adjaye, and H. Niemann
Genome-wide expression profiling reveals distinct clusters of transcriptional regulation during bovine preimplantation development in vivo
PNAS, December 16, 2008; 105(50): 19768 - 19773.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.