Expression data from visceral mesothelium (omentum) and parietal meosthelium

Mesothelia, which cover all coelomic organs and body cavities in vertebrates, perform diverse functions in embryonic and adult life. Yet, mesothelia are traditionally viewed as simple, uniform epithelia. We used microarrays to demonstrate distinct differences between visceral and parietal mesothelia, the most basic subdivision of this tissue type, in terms of gene expression. Visceral mesothelium was isolated from the omentum of adult Wt1-cre;Rosa26ReYFP mice. In parallel, parietal mesothelium was isolated by teasing the mesothelium from the underlying skeletal muscle of the body wall of these animals. RNA was then extracted from these native mesothelia samples and used for hybridization in a microarray experiment.

间皮（Mesothelia）覆盖脊椎动物体内所有体腔器官与体腔，在胚胎发育及成年生命进程中承担多种生理功能。然而长期以来，间皮一直被视作结构简单、形态均一的上皮组织。本研究借助基因芯片（microarrays）技术，证实了该组织最基础的两个亚型——脏层间皮与壁层间皮——在基因表达水平上存在显著差异。研究人员从成年Wt1-cre;Rosa26ReYFP小鼠的网膜（omentum）中分离得到脏层间皮；与此同时，通过将间皮从该类动物体壁下方的骨骼肌组织上轻柔剥离，获取了壁层间皮。随后，从上述天然间皮样本中提取RNA，用于基因芯片实验中的杂交反应。