Transcriptome analysis of WWC2-deficient E11.5 embryos

The Hippo signaling pathway is known to regulate cell differentiation, proliferation and apoptosis. The WWC proteins, WWC1 and WWC2, positively regulate the Hippo pathway by the activation of the LATS kinases and the subsequent cytoplasmic translocation of YAP. The in vivo role of WWC2 has not been studied, yet. We could show, that the ubiquitous knockout of WWC2 in mice leads to placental defects, growth retardation, a disturbed angiogenesis and vascularization resulting in embryonic lethality at around E11.5. To further understand the function of WWC2 in the embryonic development, a transcriptome analysis by next generation sequencing was performed. The gene expression of 4 samples of E11.5 embryos homozygous for the WWC2 deletion were compared to 3 samples of E11.5 embryos heterozygous for the WWC2 deletion and 3 samples of wildtype embryos