Spatiotemporal transcriptional dynamics of the cycling mouse oviduct

Female fertility in mammals requires the iterative remodeling of the entire adult female reproductive tract across the menstrual/estrous cycle. Here we examine global transcriptional dynamics of the mouse oviduct along the anteroposterior axis and across the estrous cycle. Though we observed robust patterns of differential oviduct gene expression along the anteroposterior axis, we found surprisingly few changes in gene expression across the estrous cycle, in marked contrast to other mammals. We speculate that this is an evolutionarily derived state that may reflect the extremely rapid five-day mouse estrous cycle. Mouse oviducts from 7-9 week-old estrous-cycle-staged Swiss Webster female mice were linearized and dissected in duplicate for each of the four estrous stages across both anterior and posterior regions. RNA was extracted from the oviduct Anterior: stage Proestrus n=2, Estrus n=2, Metestrus n=2, Diestrus n=2. RNA was extracted from the oviduct Posterior: stage Proestrus n=2, Estrus n=2, Metestrus n=2, Diestrus n=2.