Messenger RNA differential display strategies in birds and amphibians

As an inroad to the discovery of genes involved in important biological activities, various techniques have been developed for detecting genes based on their expression levels. Arbitrary amplification of different messenger RNA (mRNA) populations and their comparison on display autoradiograms made mRNA differential display one of the most straightforward approaches to identification of differentially regulated mRNAs. Over the past decade this strategy has been employed in many in vitro and in vivo systems. The use of the method in bird and amphibian model systems is reviewed here, emphasizing several unique combinations of model system and design of differential display screen.