Hox Abdominal-B Genes in the Developing Kidney

The Hox complex consists of 39 genes arranged in 4 clusters of flanking genes and 13 paralogous groups in mammals. To assess the functional redundancy of Hox abdominal-B genes during renal development, we used a modified recombineering strategy to simultaneous introduce frameshift mutations into the Hox9, Hox10, and Hox11 flanking genes of the HoxA, HoxC, and HoxD paralogous groups. We performed RNA seq on whole kidneys at E18.5 in triplicates for representative genotypes including: wild type; Hoxa9,10,11-/- HoxC9,10,11+/-, Hoxa9,10,11+/- HoxC9,10,11-/-, Hoxa9,10,11-/- HoxC9,10,11-/-. Our results suggest that the loss of Hox function results in a partial metanephric to mesonephric transformation, with tubules co-expressing markers of both proximal tubules and collecting ducts, as well as markers of mesonephric-derived epididymis tubules. mRNA profiles were generated by performing RNA-seq on whole kidneys at E18.5 in triplicates for Hox mutant genotypes including: 1) wild type; 2) Hoxa9,10,11-/- HoxC9,10,11+/-, 3) Hoxa9,10,11+/- HoxC9,10,11-/-, and 4) Hoxa9,10,11-/- HoxC9,10,11-/- by deep sequencing using Illumina Hi-Seq 2500