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Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Metabolic Labeling of the Nascent Transcriptome in Xenopus Early Embryogenesis
Published on: March 27, 2026
Differential gene expression in egg cells and zygotes suggests that the transcriptome is restructed before the first
Jue Ning1, Xiong-Bo Peng, Liang-Huan Qu
1Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education for Plant Developmental Biology, College of Life Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China.
Abstract:
We applied suppression subtractive hybridization and mirror orientation selection to compare gene expression profiles of isolated Nicotiana tabacum cv SR1 zygotes and egg cells. Our results revealed that many differentially expressed genes in zygotes were transcribed de novo after fertilization. Some of these genes are critical to zygote polarity and pattern formation during early embryogenesis. This suggests that the transcriptome is restructed in zygote and that the maternal-to-zygotic transition happens before the first zygotic division, which is much earlier in higher plants than in animals. The expressed sequence tags used in this study provide a valuable resource for future research on fertilization and early embryogenesis.
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