MicroRNA expression signatures for developing tongue primordia in mouse embryos

We aimed to understand the molecular basis of muscular development in tongue. We focused on the critical stages of tongue myogenesis, namely, E10.5 (settlement of myogenic progenitors in tongue primordium), E11.5 (initiation of myoblast differentiation with the development of lateral lingual swellings). We conducted miRNA microarray analysis of the tongue primordia at E10.5 and E11.5, during which myoblast differentiation was induced as a result of the activation of muscle regulatory gene expression. The medial part of the fused mandibular prominences that corresponds to a tongue primordium were collected from E10.5 and E11.5 mouse embryos. Forty embryos for each time-point were used to obtain a pool of total RNA.