Expression Profile of Chicken Primitive Streak (HH4) Tissues

In birds and mammals, all mesoderm cells are generated from the primitive streak. Nascent mesoderm cells contain unique dorso-ventral (D/V) identities depending on their relative ingression position along the streak. Molecular mechanisms controlling this initial phase of mesoderm diversification are not well-understood. Using chick model, we generated high-quality transcriptomic datasets of different streak regions and analyzed their molecular heterogeneity. Streak tissues were dissected from stage-matched HH4 chick embryos and were further divided into four equal pieces along its anterio-posterior length (termed “A”, “B”, “C” and “D”, with “A” representing most anterior and therefore most dorsal and “D” most posterior and therefore most ventral). Each of the four regions was represented by three independent samples (n=3), with each sample containing 5-7 μg total RNA derived from 85-93 pooled pieces. 5 μg of RNA from each sample were used to screen Affymetrix Chicken Genome Array without an amplification step.