Molecular Phenotype of the Human Oocyte by PCR–SAGE

• Published in: Genomics (San Diego, Calif.) Calif.), 2000-01, Vol.63 (1), p.13-24
• Main Authors: Neilson, Lorna, Andalibi, Ali, Kang, Douglas, Coutifaris, Christos, Strauss, Jerome F, Stanton, Jo-Ann L, Green, David P.L
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Databases, Factual; est; Expressed Sequence Tags; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gene expression; Gene Expression Profiling; Humans; Molecular and cellular biology; Molecular genetics; Molecular Probe Techniques; National Institutes of Health (U.S.); Oocytes - metabolism; PCR-SAGE; Phenotype; Polymerase Chain Reaction; RNA, Messenger - analysis; totipotency; United States
• ISSN: 0888-7543; 1089-8646
• DOI: 10.1006/geno.1999.6059

Consecutive application of PCR and serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) was used to generate a catalog of ∼50,000 SAGEtags from nine human oocytes. Matches for known genes were identified using the National Institutes of Health SAGEtag database. This database links directly to the UniGene database, providing rapid discrimination between SAGEtags that match known genes and expressed sequence tags and those that currently have no match. Matches in the oocyte SAGE catalog were found for surface receptors, second-messenger systems, and cytoskeletal, apoptotic, and secreted proteins. Many of these proteins were not previously known to be expressed in mammalian oocytes. The relative abundances of transcripts for cytoskeletal proteins and proteins known to be in oocytes are consistent with their documented expression, suggesting an absence of representational distortion by the PCR step. The expression profile of the human oocyte may help identify factors that reprogram somatic cell nuclei to totipotency.