Deciphering Gene Expression Program of MAP3K1 in Mouse Eyelid Morphogenesis

Embryonic eyelid closure is a critical step of mammalian ocular surface development involving the forward movement and ultimate fusion of the upper and lower eyelids. Although its underlying mechanism of action is not fully understood, a functional mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase 1 (MAP3K1) is essentially required for eyelid closure. We used microarray to characterize the central role that MAP3K1 plays in embryonic eyelid closure. We used Laser Capture Microdissection (LCM) to obtain highly enriched eyelid leading edge and inner eyelid cells from E15.5 wild type and MAP3K1-deficient fetuses and analyze genome-wide expression profiles.