FIG. 6.

Blastocyst development in REX1-IRESeGFP-injected embryos. (A) Zygotes were injected with REX1-IRESeGFP-expressing plasmids and cultured in vitro. The following days those that progressed to the 2-cell stage on day 2, and cleaved to >4-cell stages early on day 3, were selected for further culture. On day 3, embryos were separated in pools that express high levels (GFP↑) or low levels (GFP↓) of REX1 (as judged by epifluorescence). Further development to blastocyst and gene expression levels were compared between the 2 groups. (B) Development of injected embryos. The fraction of injected embryos in 3 independent experiments that develop into the 2- or 4-cell stage as indicated. (C) Development after GFP selection. The fraction of >4-cell embryos that develop into blastocyst in 5 independent experiments is represented for overexpressing (GFP↑) versus nonexpressing embryos (GFP↓). (D) Data from separate experiments (Supplementary Table S2) were recalculated as the fold blastocyst development in nonexpressing embryos (GFP↓) versus overexpressing (GFP↑) in each experiment. The differences observed between the 2 groups are statistically significant (χ² test; P<0.001). Color images available online at www.liebertpub.com/scd