Expression profiling of retinoic acid targets in lateral mesoderm from Xenopus laevis embryos

Renal precusors of the Xenopus pronephros arise from dorso-lateral mesoderm at the early neurula stage. This process is under the control of retinoic acid (RA). We have used microarrays to identify RA targets in dorso-latearl mesoderm by performing differential expression analysis between control and RA-depleted situations mRNA encoding GFP (control) or a mix of GFP and RA-catabolizing enzyme cyp26 (RA-depleted) were microinjected in 4-cell stage embryos. Lateral marginal zone (LMZ) explants were dissected at the early gastrula stage and cultured for 1h (early gastrula), 3 h (mid-gastrula) or overnight (early neurula)