Figure 6

Expression levels of OR genes expressed at birth but not in older rats. (A) RNA samples prepared from olfactory epithelia (4 adults, 4 old rats and 19 newborns from each litter L1 to L4) were used for RTqPCR of 7 OR genes identified by microarray analysis as expressed in newborns only. Each mRNA was analyzed in triplicate and a mean value calculated. ΔCt values were calculated with respect to the Hprt values and ΔΔCt with respect to a control sample equated to 1. Further, the analyses were performed on four samples of the same group of age; error bars represent means ± SD (n = 4 rat RNA samples per group). (B) The table shows the number of samples giving a hybridization signal above background. For Olr500, taken as an example, none of the 8 adult and 8 old rat samples gave a hybridization signal above background. Conversely, all samples from the 15 newborn rats from litters L2 to L4 and three newborn rats of the four of litter L1 gave a hybridization signal above background.