Figure 2

Figure 2

Combined transcriptome analysis across vertebrate species reveals common gene expression signatures during OFC. PCA analyses for aligned transcriptomes for chicks and zebrafish (a), or for chicks, zebrafish, and mice (b,c) at OFC stages prior to fusion (a), active fusion (b), or fused fissure stages (c). (d) Venn diagram showing intersection analysis for fissure-enriched DEGs for all stages of OFC between mice, chicks, and zebrafish. There were 10 fissure-specific DEGs shared among all three species: EPHB3, ALDH1A3, BMPR1B, EMX2, NTN1, PAX2, SMOC1, VAX1, TENM3, and NID1. (e) Analysis of shared DEGs among all four species identified five genes with fissure-enriched expression throughout OFC in humans, mice, chickens, and zebrafish: SMOC1, NTN1, ALDH1A3, VAX1, and TENM3. Additional genes whose expression is conserved to humans from each single species are listed in Supplemental Table S1.