RESEARCH ARTICLE Comparison between Timelines of Transcriptional Regulation in Mammals, Birds, and Teleost Fish Somitogenesis Bernard Fongang, Andrzej Kudlicki* Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Sealy Center for Molecular Medicine, Institute for Translational Sciences, University of Texas Medical Branch, 301 University Blvd, Galveston, Texas, USA *
[email protected] a11111 Abstract Metameric segmentation of the vertebrate body is established during somitogenesis, when a cyclic spatial pattern of gene expression is created within the mesoderm of the developing OPEN ACCESS embryo. The process involves transcriptional regulation of genes associated with the Wnt, Citation: Fongang B, Kudlicki A (2016) Comparison Notch, and Fgf signaling pathways, each gene is expressed at a specific time during the between Timelines of Transcriptional Regulation in somite cycle. Comparative genomics, including analysis of expression timelines may reveal Mammals, Birds, and Teleost Fish Somitogenesis. the underlying regulatory modules and their causal relations, explaining the nature and ori- PLoS ONE 11(5): e0155802. doi:10.1371/journal. gin of the segmentation mechanism. Using a deconvolution approach, we computationally pone.0155802 reconstruct and compare the precise timelines of expression during somitogenesis in Editor: Barbara Jennings, Oxford Brookes University, chicken and zebrafish. The result constitutes a resource that may be used for inferring pos- UNITED KINGDOM sible causal relations between genes and subsequent pathways. While the sets of regulated Received: February 29, 2016 genes and expression profiles vary between different species, notable similarities exist Accepted: May 4, 2016 between the temporal organization of the pathways involved in the somite clock in chick and Published: May 18, 2016 mouse, with certain aspects (as the phase of expression of Notch genes) conserved also in Copyright: © 2016 Fongang, Kudlicki.