Gene Expression Differences in p53-Deficient Day 8.5 Mouse Embryos

Neural tube defects (NTDs) are one of the most common human birth defects, with a prevalence of approximately 1 in 1000 live births in the United States. In animal studies, deletion of p53 leads to a significant increase in embryos that exhibit exencephaly. Whereas several studies have closely investigated the morphological changes of p53-deficient embryos, there is no study that has reported the molecular-level alternations in p53-deficient embryos. Here we use microarray approach to find genes modified by deletion of p53 in day 8.5 mouse embryos to identify genes that may be involved in the mechanisms underlining NTDs and begin to define the developmental role of p53 in the etiology of NTDs. Keywords: genetic modification Day 8.5 mouse embryos from p53 heterozygous crosses were collected, genotyped, and embryos of similar genotype (+/+; +/-; -/-) were pooled. Total RNA of biological quarduplicate samples were isolated each from p53 +/+, +/-, -/- embryos. Total RNA of each sample was obtained from 3-7 embryos. Gene expression differences between the three genotypes were examined.