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The majority of embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) do not implant. It seems plausible that rates of implantation would improve if we had a better understanding of molecular factors affecting embryo competence. Currently, the process of selecting an embryo for uterine transfer uses an ad hoc combination of morphological criteria, the kinetics of development, and genetic testing for aneuploidy. However, no single criterion can ensure selection of a viable embryo. In contrast, RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) of embryos could yield high-dimensional data, which may provide additional insight and illuminate the discrepancies among current selection criteria. Recent advances enabling the production of RNA-seq libraries from single cells have facilitated the application of this technique to the study of transcriptional events in early human development. However, these studies have not assessed the quality of their constituent embryos relative to commonly used embryological criteria. Here, we perform proof-of-principle advancement to embryo selection procedures by generating RNA-seq libraries from a trophectoderm biopsy as well as the remaining whole embryo. We combine state-of-the-art embryological methods with low-input RNA-seq to develop the first transcriptome-wide approach for assessing embryo competence. Specifically, we show the capacity of RNA-seq as a promising tool in preimplantation screening by showing that biopsies of an embryo can capture valuable information available in the whole embryo from which they are derived. Furthermore, we show that this technique can be used to generate a RNA-based digital karyotype and to identify candidate competence-associated genes. Together, these data establish the foundation for a future RNA-based diagnostic in IVF.

Numerous studies over the past decade have identified increasing numbers of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) across many organisms. Research since has shown that lncRNAs constitute an important layer of genome regulation in diverse biological processes and disease. Here, we discuss the common emerging theme of lncRNAs interfacing with epigenetic machinery. This, in turn, modulates the activity and localization of the epigenetic machinery during cell fate specification.

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) regulate diverse processes, yet a potential role for lncRNAs in maintaining the undifferentiated state in somatic tissue progenitor cells remains uncharacterized. We used transcriptome sequencing and tiling arrays to compare lncRNA expression in epidermal progenitor populations versus differentiating cells. We identified ANCR (anti-differentiation ncRNA) as an 855-base-pair lncRNA down-regulated during differentiation. Depleting ANCR in progenitor-containing populations, without any other stimuli, led to rapid differentiation gene induction. In epidermis, ANCR loss abolished the normal exclusion of differentiation from the progenitor-containing compartment. The ANCR lncRNA is thus required to enforce the undifferentiated cell state within epidermis.

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) comprise a diverse class of transcripts that structurally resemble mRNAs but do not encode proteins. Recent genome-wide studies in humans and the mouse have annotated lncRNAs expressed in cell lines and adult tissues, but a systematic analysis of lncRNAs expressed during vertebrate embryogenesis has been elusive. To identify lncRNAs with potential functions in vertebrate embryogenesis, we performed a time-series of RNA-seq experiments at eight stages during early zebrafish development. We reconstructed 56,535 high-confidence transcripts in 28,912 loci, recovering the vast majority of expressed RefSeq transcripts while identifying thousands of novel isoforms and expressed loci. We defined a stringent set of 1133 noncoding multi-exonic transcripts expressed during embryogenesis. These include long intergenic ncRNAs (lincRNAs), intronic overlapping lncRNAs, exonic antisense overlapping lncRNAs, and precursors for small RNAs (sRNAs). Zebrafish lncRNAs share many of the characteristics of their mammalian counterparts: relatively short length, low exon number, low expression, and conservation levels comparable to that of introns. Subsets of lncRNAs carry chromatin signatures characteristic of genes with developmental functions. The temporal expression profile of lncRNAs revealed two novel properties: lncRNAs are expressed in narrower time windows than are protein-coding genes and are specifically enriched in early-stage embryos. In addition, several lncRNAs show tissue-specific expression and distinct subcellular localization patterns. Integrative computational analyses associated individual lncRNAs with specific pathways and functions, ranging from cell cycle regulation to morphogenesis. Our study provides the first systematic identification of lncRNAs in a vertebrate embryo and forms the foundation for future genetic, genomic, and evolutionary studies., National Human Genome Research Institute (U.S.) (Grant 1RO1HG005111-01)

Reciprocal epithelial–mesenchymal interactions shape site-specific development of skin. Here we show that site-specific HOX expression in fibroblasts is cell-autonomous and epigenetically maintained. The distal-specific gene HOXA13 is continually required to maintain the distal-specific transcriptional program in adult fibroblasts, including expression of WNT5A, a morphogen required for distal development. The ability of distal fibroblasts to induce epidermal keratin 9, a distal-specific gene, is abrogated by depletion of HOXA13, but rescued by addition of WNT5A. Thus, maintenance of appropriate HOX transcriptional program in adult fibroblasts may serve as a source of positional memory to differentially pattern the epithelia during homeostasis and regeneration.

A DNA microarray representing nearly all of the unique sequences of human Chromosome 22 was constructed and used to measure global-transcriptional activity in placental poly(A)+RNA. We found that many of the known, related and predicted genes are expressed. More importantly, our study reveals twice as many transcribed bases as have been reported previously. Many of the newly discovered expressed fragments were verified by RNA blot analysis and a novel technique called differential hybridization mapping (DHM). Interestingly, a significant fraction of these novel fragments are expressed antisense to previously annotated introns. The coding potential of these novel expressed regions is supported by their sequence conservation in the mouse genome. This study has greatly increased our understanding of the biological information encoded on a human chromosome. To facilitate the dissemination of these results to the scientific community, we have developed a comprehensive Web resource to present the findings of this study and other features of human Chromosome 22 athttp://array.mbb.yale.edu/chr22.