Tissue specificity of gene expression profiling from mussels in normal conditions.

We examined tissue specificity of gene expression in control mussels. Total RNA was isolated from gills (G), digestive gland (DG), tissues involved in contraction/motility (FML: foot/adductor muscles/ligaments) and reproduction (GM: gonads and mantle) producing four tissue-specific samples. Total RNA was reverse-transcribed and labeled using a Cy3-dCTP and Cy5-dCTP direct incorporation. Each sample was hybridized in competition with the total pool (equal RNA amounts from G, DG, GM and FML) and the relative abundance of each gene was measured by directly comparing fluorescent signals for each probe. We reversed labeling of pool tissues (reference) and single tissue sample in each experiment, thus carrying out two separate hybridizations for each tissue. Keywords = mussels Keywords = tissue specificity Keywords = normal conditions Keywords = gene expression profiling Keywords: ordered