Skip to main content
Figure 5 | BMC Biotechnology

Figure 5

From: Single-cell duplex RT-LATE-PCR reveals Oct4 and XistRNA gradients in 8-cell embryos

Figure 5

Variability of Xist and Oct4 RNA levels among blastomeres of the same 8-cell embryo. (A) Xist RNA+DNA copy numbers measured in the single blastomeres recovered from eight female embryos at the 8-cell stage. Genomic Xist DNA amounts to two copies in each cell and is negligible on the scale used for this graph. Bars of the same color indicate cells extracted from the same embryo, which were arranged and numbered in order of increasing Xist RNA content. When fewer than eight cells were recovered, the collected blastomeres were assigned to the groups with the closest Xist RNA contents. (B) Oct4 RNA+DNA levels in individual blastomeres recovered from fourteen male and female 8-cell embryos. Two copies of Oct4 template per cell are due to the presence of genomic DNA (negligible on the scale used). Bars were arranged with the same criteria used for Xist expression analysis in panel A; colors were used independently in the two panels. By the 8-cell stage blastomeres comprising the same embryo consistently exhibit different levels of expression of both the Xist and the Oct4 gene.

Back to article page