Figure 1

Microarray set-up and sample validation. RNA from morula (A, purple), blastocyst (B, green), trophectoderm (C, blue) and inner cell mass (D, orange) was hybridized on microarrays. A common reference sample composed of blastocysts was hybridized with each sample in duplicate in balanced dye-swap (E, arrows indicate an array and the used fluorescent label; Cy3: green; Cy5: red). The heat map (F) illustrates pairwise clustering of microarray sample replicates. Yellow colour represents over-expressed probes and blue colour represents under-expressed probes as indicated by the colour legend (B = blastocyst; ICM = inner cell mass; M = morula; TE = trophectoderm). Representative pictures of immunofluorescent labelling of dissected ICM (G) and TE (H) for GATA6 (green) and CDX2 (red); double GATA6-CDX2 nuclei appear yellow. Nuclear staining by DAPI (blue). A 2D principal component analysis plot (I) with sample position indicating clustering of trophectoderm (blue), blastocyst (green), inner cell mass (orange) and morula (purple) replicates.