Perturbed gastrulation in embryos from diabetic pregnancies.. Mus musculus

Maternal diabetes is a teratogen that can lead to neural tube closure defects in the offspring. In neurulation-stage embryos from diabetic dams, we detected abnormal tissue protruding from the open neural tube. To determine the origin of such protrusions, we compared gene expression profiles between open neural plate with normal morphology, and protrusion tissue. Neurulation-stage mouse embryos at 8.5 days of gestation were used to prepare open neural tube at the anterior aspect of neural tube closure site 1 by laser capture microdissection. For each sample, 10 sections were pooled, total RNA was extracted, and 7 ng of total RNA were used for expression profiling by Tag sequencing using an Applied Biosystems SolidSAGE kit for library construction, and an AB SOLiD 5500 XL instrument for sequencing. Protrusion tissue was prepared from whole embryos by microdissection, and 12ng of total RNA per sample was used for Tag sequencing. Sequence reads were mapped to RefSeq RNA, and count data per gene were obtained using a modified version of the Applied Biosystems SOLiD™ SAGE™ Analysis Software. Overall design: Neural plate protrusion compared to open neural plate anterior of closure site 1 with normal morphology