MicroRNA expression signatures for developing tongue primordia in mouse embryos

We aimed to understand the molecular basis of muscular development in tongue. We focused on the critical stages of tongue myogenesis, namely, E10.5 (settlement of myogenic progenitors in tongue primordium), E11.5 (initiation of myoblast differentiation with the development of lateral lingual swellings). We conducted miRNA microarray analysis of the tongue primordia at E10.5 and E11.5, during which myoblast differentiation was induced as a result of the activation of muscle regulatory gene expression. The medial part of the fused mandibular prominences that corresponds to a tongue primordium were collected from E10.5 and E11.5 mouse embryos. Forty embryos for each time-point were used to obtain a pool of total RNA.本研究旨在解析舌肌发育的分子基础。我们聚焦于舌肌发生（tongue myogenesis）的关键阶段，即胚胎发育第10.5天（E10.5，肌源性祖细胞（myogenic progenitors）定位于舌原基（tongue primordium））与胚胎发育第11.5天（E11.5，伴随舌侧隆起（lateral lingual swellings）形成的成肌细胞分化（myoblast differentiation）启动阶段）。我们对E10.5和E11.5阶段的舌原基进行了miRNA微阵列分析，该阶段因肌肉调控基因表达激活而诱导成肌细胞分化。研究样本取自E10.5和E11.5阶段的小鼠胚胎，采集对应舌原基的融合下颌突（fused mandibular prominences）内侧部分。每个时间点选取40枚胚胎以混合提取总RNA（total RNA）。