Transcriptome_analysis_of_wild_type__mutant_and__rescued__mouse_placentas_at_mid_gestation

Embryogenesis depends on a functional placenta. Mutations in certain genes, such as those studied here, result in placental defects. These placental defects may coincide with developmental abnormalities of the embryo proper, or they may indeed be causative of them. These causal differences can be distinguished, at least in part, in conditional gene knockouts using Sox2-Cre mice where only the embryonic lineage including the placental endothelial cells are ablated for the gene of interest, while the remainder of the placenta, the so-called trophoblast compartment, inherits a functional allele. We termed conceptuses with this genetic constellation “placental rescue”. Here, we employed this strategy to dissect trophoblast-specific defects in placentas that are either full knock-out or placental rescues, compared to wild-type. We establish global expression profiles to identify to what extent a functional trophoblast lineage in placental rescues restores the gene expression profile of a wild-type placenta.