Expression profiling of wildtype mouse cornea in development, adult, and aging

While the mouse cornea has been well characterized morphologically, the transcriptional changes have not been described in detail. To characterize the genes, pathways, and transcriptional regulators involved in mouse cornea development and aging, we isolated whole cornea from wildtype CB6 mice at several developmental timepoints and every 6 months in the adult. Corneal epithelium and stroma were isolated at one timepoint to provide insights into the genes that are unique to each tissue. Total RNA was purified from whole mouse cornea at 12 time points over the life of the mouse and from corneal epithelium and stroma at a single timepoint.尽管小鼠角膜的形态学特征已得到充分表征，但其转录组层面的变化尚未得到详细阐释。为了系统表征参与小鼠角膜发育与衰老过程的基因、信号通路及转录调控因子，我们从多个发育时间点的野生型CB6小鼠体内分离完整角膜，并在成年阶段每6个月采集一次样本。我们还在单个时间点分离了角膜上皮与角膜基质，以解析两种组织各自特异性表达的基因特征。我们从小鼠整个生命周期内的12个时间点的完整角膜样本中提取纯化了总RNA，并在单个时间点从角膜上皮和角膜基质中分离得到总RNA。