Project name: Mus musculus

Description: Prophase I of male meiosis involves dynamic chromosome segregation processes during early spermatogenesis, including synapsis, meiotic recombination, and cohesion. Genetic defects in genes participating in these processes consistently cause reproduction failure in mice. To identify candidate genes responsible for infertility in humans, we performed expression profiling of mouse spermatogenic cells undergoing meiotic prophase I.Overall design: Cell fractions enriched in spermatogonia, leptotene/zygotene spermatocytes, or pachytene spermatocytes were separately isolated from mouse testes for RNA extraction. To minimize the contamination of other cell types, we fractionated the testicular cells undergoing the first round of spermatogenesis using Percoll gradient procedure. The cell fractions were characterized by morphological analysis by phase contrast microscopy and Nomarski interference microscopy, and then expression of cell lineage- and spermatogenesis stage-specific genes were examined by RT-PCR. The most enriched fractions for spermatogonia (fraction2 from day8), leptotene/zygotene spermatocytes (fraction5 from day12), and pachytene spermatocytes (fraction8 from day15) were subjected to hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays.

Data type: Transcriptome or Gene expression

Sample scope: Multiisolate

Relevance: ModelOrganism

Release date: 2010-03-31

Last updated: 2009-12-17