Time Course of Degradation and Deadenylation of Maternal c-mos and Cyclin A2 mRNA during Early Development of One- Cell Embryo in Mouse

Early in the development of many animals, before transcription begins, any change in the pattern of protein synthesis is attributed to a change in the translational activity or stability of mRNA in the egg and early embryo. As a result, translational control is critical for a variety of developmental decisions, including oocyte maturation and initiation of preimplantation development. In this study, using real-time RT-PCR method, we defined the time course of degradation and deadenylation of an oocyte specific gene (c-mos) more precisely and a gene that is re-synthesized after ZGA (cyclin A2). Our data indicate that oocyte-specific transcript, c-mos, degrades rapidly while cyclin A2 mRNA does not and the deadenylation of c-mos mRNA precedes the process of degradation. Our findings suggest that time-dependent elimination of different maternal mRNA is a way for regulation of translation in early development of mouse embryos.