Staging of ovine embryos and expression of the T-box genes Brachyury and Eomesodermin around gastrulation.

The high rates of embryonic mortalities which follow in vitro production of ruminant embryos have emphasized the need for increased knowledge of early development. It is likely that early failures in embryonic development and placenta formation involve abnormal differentiation of mesoderm. The aim of this study was to investigate the pattern of expression of two T-box genes known to control the gastrulation process, Brachyury and Eomesodermin, by whole-mount in situ hybridization. To allow a more precise comparison of both expression patterns between embryos, we describe a new staging of pre-implanted ovine embryos by gross morphology and histology from pre-gastrulation stages to the beginning of neurulation. In pre-streak embryos primitive mesoderm cells delaminated in between the primitive endoderm and the epiblast. At that stage, no expression of Brachyury or Eomesodermin could be detected in the embryos. Early expression of both T-genes was observed by the early-streak stages in epiblast cells located close to the presumptive posterior pole of the embryos. Later on, during gastrulation both genes followed a pattern of expression similar to the ones described in other mammals. These observations suggest that other genes, which remain to be identified, are responsible for extra-embryonic mesoderm differentiation in ruminant embryos.