A gene expression atlas of early craniofacial development

We present a gene expression atlas of early mouse craniofacial development. Laser capture microdissection (LCM) was used to isolate cells from the principal critical micro-regions, whose development, differentiation and signaling interactions are responsible for the construction of the mammalian face. We examined the facial mesenchyme and adjacent neuroepithelium at E8.5, at E9.5, facial mesenchyme, olfactory placode/epidermal ectoderm, underlying neuroepithileium, and emerging mandibular and maxillary arches. AT E10.5 we sampled the medial and lateral prominences, olfactory pit, multiple regions of the underlying neuroepithelium the mandibular and maxillary arches, and Rathke's pouch. For these 103 samples, laser capture microdissection from serial and bioreplicated E8.5, E.9.5, and E10.5 frozen sections was used to make RNA using the ZR RNA MicroPrep kit (Zymo). Nugen RiboSpia Ovation Pico WTA System V2 was used target amplification. We used starting total RNA of at least 2 ng. For further details about this study contact [e-mail] (isolation and labeling) or [e-mail] (informatics) Mouse embryos were harvested at developmental stage E8.5 , E9.5, and E10.5 and using LCM, cells were captured from the major micro-regions known to be responsible for the construction of the mammalian face. RNA was extracted, labelled, and quantified using the Mouse ST-l microarray.