Figure 1.

AhR expression increases during embryo differentiation

(A) Immunofluorescence analysis of AHR at the indicated embryonic stages. Whole AhR^+/+ embryos (n = 4) were stained using a specific AHR antibody. Hoechst staining was used to label cell nuclei. Confocal microscopy was used for detection. Scale bar, 20 μm.

(B) Immunofluorescence was quantified by calculating the mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) for each developmental stage (the replicates are indicated in the x axis).

(C) AhR mRNA expression was quantified by qRT-PCR using RNA purified from TE or ICM fractions previously separated by MACS.

(D) AhR mRNA expression was quantified by qRT-PCR in AhR^+/+ embryos at the indicated developmental stages using total RNA and the specific primers indicated in Table S1. qRT-PCR was normalized by the expression of β-actin and is represented as 2^−ΔΔCt.

^∗p < 0.05; ^∗∗p < 0.01; ^∗∗∗p < 0.001. Data are shown as mean ± SD. The experiments were performed at least four times, and number of embryos analyzed is indicated on the x axis.