Transcriptomic profiling of E9.5 mouse embryos lacking the lipoprotein receptor SR-B1. Transcriptomic profiling of E9.5 mouse embryos lacking the lipoprotein receptor SR-B1

The high-density lipoprotein receptor SR-B1 mediates cellular uptake of several lipid species, including cholesterol and vitamin E. During early development, SR-B1 is located in the maternal-fetal interface, where it facilitates vitamin E transport towards the embryo. Consequently, embryos lacking SR-B1 are vitamin E-deficient, and around half of them fail to close the neural tube and show neural tube defects (NTD). Here, we studied the transcriptomic profile of mouse embryos lacking SR-B1 to identify the molecular determinants of this phenotypic difference. We used RNA-Seq to analyze the expression of mRNA globally in E9.5 wild-type embryos and embryos lacking SR-B1 with or without NTD, in order to compare expression profiles in those groups and to identify putative genes driving phenotypic differences. Overall design: We analyzed 3 samples of each group (wild-type, SR-B1 KO normal, SR-B1 KO NTD). Each samples corresponded to a pool of 3 embryos.