Gene Networks Operating in Primordial Germ Cells

MARY LOU KING; DAWN OWENS; AMANDA BUTLER; LINGYU WANG; TRISTÁN AGÜERO

Saint Augustine, FLorida

Congreso; SE-SDB annual meeting; 2016

Society for Developmental Biology

Theretention of totipotency within the germ cell lineage is critical to thesurvival of multicellular organisms.  Howprimordial germ cells retain full potential within the context of the differentiatingembryo remains a key question in developmental biology.  Primordial germ cells (PGCs) in Xenopus arespecified through the inheritance of germ plasm, a subcellular matrixcontaining all the determinants required to form the germline. We have carriedout a high throughput analysis of RNAs highly enriched at the vegetal pole of theXenopus oocyte where germ plasm is localized. A similar analysis of isolated PGCs was done at a time point just afterthey have separated from the endoderm lineage. Over 3,000 unique transcripts werefound upregulated in PGCs compared to endoderm cells. GeneGo analysis of thetop 300 transcripts unregulated in PGCs identified over ten different gene hubs.To begin a functional analysis of key genes, we used both a gain-of-function andloss-of function approach.  Results fromsuch experiments will be presented for sox7, enfb1, and dead-end.  Each has a critical role in PGCdevelopment.  Our results underscore theimportance of the vegetal pole as a center for cell signaling and as a repositoryfor germline determinants. NIH GM102397 and HD072340 (MLK).