Project name: Mus musculus

Description: One of the earliest morphological changes during testicular differentiation is the establishment of an XY specific vasculature. The testis vascular system is derived from mesonephric endothelial cells that migrate into the gonad. In the XX gonad, mesonephric cell migration and testis vascular development is inhibited by WNT4 signaling. In Wnt4mutant XX gonads, endothelial cells migrate from the mesonephros and form a male-like coelomic vessel. Consequently, the XX Wnt4 mutant mice presented an opportunity to focus agene expression screen on the processes of mesonephric cell migration and testicular vascular development. We compared differences in gene expression between XY Wnt4+/+ and XX Wnt4+/+ gonads and between XX Wnt4-/- and XX Wnt4+/+ gonads to identify genes similarly upregulated in wildtype XY gonads and XX mutant gonads that might play important roles in testis-specific vascular development.Keywords: genetic sex and phenotypic comparisonsOverall design: Expression profiling was performed on gonads collected from XY Wnt4+/+, XX Wnt4+/+ and Wnt4-/- embryos at 12.0 days post coitum, using arrays spotted with the Operon Mouse Genome Oligo Set, version 2.0. Competitive dual-color hybridizations with dye-swap controls were performed in duplicate for each of two comparisons: XY Wnt4+/+, versus XX Wnt4+/+, and XX Wnt4-/- versus XX Wnt4+/+. For both comparisons, the wild-type XX sample is used as the reference.

Data type: Transcriptome or Gene expression

Sample scope: Multiisolate

Relevance: ModelOrganism

Release date: 2005-11-24

Last updated: 2005-11-22