Gene expression profile of Dicer-deficient oocytes

Small RNAs, such as miRNAs and siRNAs, are involved in gene regulation in a variety of systems, including mouse oocytes. Dicer is a ribonuclease III enzyme essential for miRNA and siRNA biosynthesis. In an effort to uncover the function of small RNAs during oocyte growth, we specifically deleted Dicer in growing oocytes and analyzed the global pattern of gene expression in these Dicer-deficient oocytes. Germinal vesicle-intact, fully grown oocytes were collected from eCG-primed wild-type or Dicer-deficient female mice and freed of attached cumulus cells by pipetting. Twenty oocytes per mouse were used for RNA extraction and hybridization on the MOE430 v2 Affymetrix microarray platform. Oocytes from four wild-type and four Dicer-knockout mice were analyzed.