Transcriptome dynamics in early zebrafish embryogenesis determined by high-resolution time course analysis of 180 successive individual zebrafish embryos

摘要

BackgroundRecently, much progress has been made in the field of gene-expression in early embryogenesis. However, the dynamic behaviour of transcriptomes in individual embryos has hardly been studied yet and the time points at which pools of embryos are collected are usually still quite far apart. Here, we present a high-resolution gene-expression time series with 180 individual zebrafish embryos, obtained from nine different spawns, developmentally ordered and profiled from late blastula to mid-gastrula stage. On average one embryo per minute was analysed. The focus was on identification and description of the transcriptome dynamics of the expressed genes in this embryonic stage, rather than to biologically interpret profiles in cellular processes and pathways.