The transcriptome of PRDM14 knockout chicken embroys

We investigate the expression of the avian homologue of PRDM14 (cPRDM14) in the early chicken embryo and show that it is expressed in the blastoderm and migratory PGCs in bird species. At later stages, it is exclusively expressed in the germ cell lineage. We used TALENs to target a GFP reporter construct to the PRDM14 locus and disrupt its expression in chicken PGCs, which were used to produce knockout chicken embryos. We found that gastrulation was disrupted in homozygous -/- embryos. An RNA transcriptome and in situ hybridisation analysis revealed that mesodermal markers were overexpressed in the blastoderm.