BACKGROUND
accurate quantification of multiple target sequences by real-time polymerase chain reaction  has been proven difficult to achieve, particularly for measuring numbers of rna transcripts, rather than of dna copies  <cit> .
in fact, while different gene sequences are represented in the genome in similar numbers , transcript levels of different genes can vary widely.
moreover, changes in gene expression are often rapid and transient in response to stimuli, stress, or cellular events such as cell division and cell differentiation.
in order to detect meaningful variations in transcript numbers it is, thus, necessary to measure them in series of single cells rather than in cell cohorts where individual differences could be lost to "background noise  <cit> ."
from all of the above considerations it follows that a convenient and reliable experimental approach, sensitive enough to measure rna copy numbers in individual cells, is essential for multiplex quantification of gene expression in biological systems.
we have recently developed an entirely single-tube method to measure mrna levels in individual cells   <cit> .
for that and a previous study  <cit>  we co-amplified and simultaneously quantified rna and dna copies of the xist and the sry genes in mouse embryos and blastomeres.
these two genes were chosen because they have sexually distinct patterns of expression in the early embryo.
female cells contain two copies of the xist gene, one on each x-chromosome, and high levels of xist transcripts but lack the sry-bearing y-chromosome, while cells from early-stage male embryos have a single unexpressed copy of the xist gene on the x-chromosome and a single unexpressed copy of sry on the y-chromosome.
hence, only xist templates  were amplified from female samples, while male embryos always generated equal numbers of xist and sry amplicons.
in these studies we were, therefore, never faced with the more common and problematic situation of having to simultaneously quantify unequal amounts of different target sequences, a technical challenge of great general interest.
in fact, conventional symmetric pcr is not easily utilized in this situation due to the exponential nature of the reaction.
with this method, abundant templates generate amplicons much more rapidly than scarcer templates and the reaction is progressively shut down by these early-accumulating double-stranded molecules that sequester the dna polymerase, and by a number of other factors  <cit> .
in the case of real-time pcr the fluorescent signal of the most abundant amplicon will reach its threshold cycle  and plateau unaffected by the presence of any other less represented template.
amplification of the less numerous templates, on the other hand, will be greatly hindered  <cit> .
thus, low copy number templates will either go undetected or their abundance will be under-estimated based on their delayed ct values.
linear-after-the-exponential -pcr, invented in our laboratory, provides a much more reliable strategy for the quantification of multiplexed templates.
this approach combines the efficiency of exponential amplification in the very early phases of the reaction with the advantages of linear amplification  <cit> .
the switch between the exponential and the linear phases of late-pcr occurs at the ct, independently for each template, so that template quantification is achieved exactly as in symmetric pcr.
after the ct is reached, a single strand of each amplicon continues to accumulate linearly and, thus, at a rate much slower than in symmetric pcr.
this feature and the fact that single-stranded amplicons do not engage the polymerase ensure efficient amplification of abundant as well as rare templates in a sample.
moreover, single-stranded amplicons afford great flexibility for the design of specific probes because the probe is free to bind to the amplicon without having to compete with a complementary strand.
single-stranded late-pcr products can also be easily and directly sequenced to confirm their identity and purity .
as reported here, the properties of late-pcr have enabled us to expand our earlier studies on differential gene expression in blastomeres of preimplantation mouse embryos  <cit> .
we focus in particular on the 8-cell stage embryo prior to compaction, when individual blastomeres can still be dissected and collected with a limited amount of manipulation.
this developmental stage immediately precedes the formation of an embryo comprised by inner and outer cells containing distinct sets of proteins in response to their different surroundings  <cit> .
it is therefore plausible to hypothesize that differences in gene expression between blastomeres of early 8-cell embryos may presage subsequent cell fate and, thus, may identify the founders of the cell lineages established during the last phase of preimplantation, the blastocyst stage  <cit> .
xist rna is an untranslated transcript responsible for x-chromosome silencing and dosage compensation in female cells.
its expression precedes x-chromosome inactivation and xist rna is present in cleavage-stage embryonic blastomeres  <cit> .
in mouse blastocysts, xist expression is paternally-imprinted; xist rna is restricted to the cells of the trophectoderm  surrounding the embryo and destined to generate extraembryonic tissues such as the placenta, while it is almost absent from the pluripotent inner cell mass  that gives origin to the embryo proper  <cit> .
the gene for the transcription factor oct <dig> presents a reciprocal expression pattern, being highly transcribed in the icm and down-regulated in the te  <cit> .
initial studies on cleaving embryos have shown that the oct <dig> protein is ubiquitously present in the blastomeres starting at the 4-cell stage  <cit> , but cell-to-cell differences were not assessed.
more recently, the importance of quantitative data has become increasingly clear because expression of the oct <dig> gene  is necessary to maintain cell pluripotency via a stringently dose-dependent regulatory process.
variations in oct <dig> levels above or below the required dosage produce cellular differentiation  <cit>  and usually consist in this gene's repression concomitant to activation of lineage- or tissue-specific genes  <cit> .
hence, cells maintaining critical amounts of oct <dig> rna during early development are candidate to be icm precursors, while lower oct <dig> rna levels and elevated xist expression may indicate a trophectodermal fate.
we and others have already reported that blastomeres of mouse 8-cell embryos contain different amounts of xist rna  <cit> .
non-quantitative analyses of human cleavage-stage blastomeres have also shown a variable distribution of oct <dig> rna  <cit> , but, for ethical reasons, the cells available for these studies are limited in number and quality.
to more thoroughly address the question of cell lineage onset, in the present work we simultaneously measured xist and oct <dig> rna levels in series of blastomeres from male and female mouse embryos at the 8-cell stage.
the results presented in this paper are the first report of quantification of cdna with late-pcr, and demonstrate the utility of this technique for gene expression studies, particularly at the single-cell level where multiplexing targets is highly desirable.
RESULTS
specificity of the oct <dig> late-pcr assay and identification of oct <dig> pseudogenes
as detailed elsewhere  <cit> , our approach is to co-amplify both the cdna and genomic dna of each gene under study by designing pcr primers within one of the gene's exons.
single cells or embryos are lysed directly into a pcr tube and both dna and rna molecules are released and de-proteinized in the same, single vessel where reverse transcription  and pcr are also carried out.
this strategy optimizes the accuracy of quantification and offers three main advantages.
first, it allows the use of genomic dna for standardization, ensuring that pcr efficiency will be exactly the same for the standard and the samples analyzed.
second, it makes it possible to count dna copy numbers in the absence of rt or in cells or embryos that do not express the gene of interest .
the presence of the genomic sequence in the sample tells us that the cell has been successfully transferred to the assay tube, even in the absence of rna.
this feature is also useful to identify rnase contamination problems if quantitative pcr analysis demonstrates the presence of the expected gene sequence but not of its transcripts.
third, co-amplification of genomic dna and cdna  eliminates the need for dnase digestion, a step known to affect rna recovery.
construction of a quantitative oct <dig> dna-specific pcr assay presented a number of technical challenges because this gene is part of a highly homologous and conserved family of transcription factors  <cit> .
oct <dig> appears to be the most actively transcribed gene of this group during early mammalian embryogenesis, decreasing the concern for non-specific amplification of homologous rnas, although some oct <dig> and oct <dig> expression has also been reported  <cit> .
at the dna level, however, the concern remains, compounded by the high frequency of retrotransposition observed for embryonic stem cell-specific genes including oct <dig>  <cit> .
additionally, the oct <dig> sequence is highly gc-rich, which favors secondary structure and requires very stringent parameters to ensure specific but efficient amplification, particularly when a second primer pair and two probes are introduced in a duplex reaction.
by running a blast search we identified sequences highly homologous to oct <dig> mrna on mouse chromosome  <dig>  and chromosome  <dig> .
the presence of these previously unreported pseudogenes was not surprising, based on similar findings in the human and bovine genomes  <cit> .
based on this knowledge and avoiding sequences repeated in the mouse genome, we constructed an oct4-specific late-pcr assay taking advantage of the flexibility that this technique affords for primer design  <cit> .
a longer, high tm primer  was designed from a very gc-rich sequence in order to include several nucleotides different from the most homologous pseudogene, while a shorter, lower tm primer  could be selected in an area of the gene less homologous to other dna sequences.
validation of the oct <dig> rt-late-pcr assay in a biological system and by sequencing
oct <dig> expression was initially analyzed in individual embryos at the late blastocyst stage, as illustrated by the examples in fig.
<dig>  the blue line shows the oct <dig> amplification plot generated by a single blastocyst that had undergone rt before pcr and, therefore, contained both genomic dna and cdna.
the pink line, in contrast, shows the oct <dig> amplification plot generated by a single blastocyst that did not undergo rt before pcr and, therefore, contained only genomic dna.
serial dilutions of purified genomic dna were assayed in parallel with the embryos and used to provide a standard for quantification of the oct <dig> template copy numbers.
the ct values of the standards are shown in the figure by color-coded arrows and reflect the fact that each genome contains two copies of the oct <dig> gene.
the blue line crosses the threshold one cycle after the 2000-copy marker, indicating that this sample contained  <dig> total oct <dig> templates .
the copy number calculated from the ct value of the pink line  was  <dig>  corresponding to  <dig> cells   <cit> .
the template number difference between the "+rt" and the "no rt" samples confirmed active oct <dig> expression , as expected in blastocyst-stage embryos  <cit> .
as a next step, we separately analyzed oct <dig> expression in each of the two lineages present in blastocyst stage embryos.
single te cells or small groups of te cells protruding from the zona pellucida in blastocysts that had initiated hatching could be removed from the embryo and were tested for their oct <dig> rna + dna content.
the green line in fig.
<dig> shows the amplification plot obtained from a single te cell after rt-pcr.
this signal was converted to only four template copies, at least two of which are genomic dna, consistent with the expected down-regulation of oct <dig> expression in te cells.
the additional two copies may be residual oct <dig> rna or genomic dna, if the te cell had completed dna duplication.
we then measured oct <dig> expression in icms extracted from blastocysts by immunosurgery.
the icm isolated from each blastocyst was divided in two aliquots, one processed by rt-pcr  and one by pcr only .
immunosurgery requires the use of embryos at the very early blastocyst stage; for this reason, the oct <dig> rna levels found in these icms cannot be directly compared to those measured in the mature blastocysts.
however, the Δct between the pink and the blue line is larger for the isolated icm  than for the whole blastocysts , signaling the presence of a higher oct <dig> rna copy number per cell in the icm.
icm cells comprise only about one-third of the blastocyst's cells, thus lower levels of oct <dig> transcripts per cell in whole blastocysts than in isolated icms are consistent with the expected active oct <dig> expression in the cells of the inner mass and down-regulation in the te.
taken together, these quantitative data provided a validation of the specificity of our late-pcr assay in a known biological system.
we further confirmed by sequencing the specificity of the oct <dig> amplicons generated from either "+rt" or "no rt" samples prepared from 8-cell embryos.
as expected, both genomic dna and cdna amplicons had the same sequence, identical to that of the oct <dig> gene at the designated amplification site .
sequencing of both the "+rt" and "no rt" amplicons confirmed that the nucleotide in position  <dig> of this sequence  is a c, and not a t as reported in the oct <dig> mrna sequence that we had used to design the primers and the probe .
since neither primers nor probe included this residue, pcr results are unaffected.
construction and optimization of a duplex late-pcr assay for simultaneous quantification of oct <dig> and xist templates
co-amplification of xist templates together with the oct <dig> templates described above was achieved following the same strategy.
however, the introduction of a second pair of primers in the reaction required a second level of optimization of the assay, which took in account possible new, non-specific interactions involving the additional oligonucleotides as well as the higher rate at which taq polymerase is used in a multiplex pcr.
we found that the optimal concentration of taq polymerase to be used for late-pcr assays can be established by analysis of the real-time amplification plots.
the oct <dig> amplification plots generated by the same amount of genomic dna in the presence of different taq polymerase concentrations are reported in fig.
<dig>  the thin lines were obtained from amplification of oct <dig> templates only, while the thick lines show amplification of oct <dig> in the duplex assay.
when only one pair of primers was present , increasing taq concentration from  <dig>  to  <dig>  or  <dig>  units per assay had the effect of making the slope of the signals steeper, due to increased amplification efficiency.
the signals produced in the presence of  <dig> and  <dig> units per assay were interdispersed, suggesting that maximal efficiency had been reached around this level.
as expected, the slopes of the lines generated during the duplex reactions  were in all cases lower than those generated by amplification of a single amplicon, because the taq polymerase was used at twice that rate.
as in the case of the single-amplicon late-pcr, augmenting taq concentration in the duplex reaction from  <dig> to  <dig> or  <dig> units per assay resulted in an increase of the signals' slopes.
there was no further increase in the initial slope of the  <dig> taq-unit group when compared to the initial slope of the  <dig> taq-unit group, again suggesting that maximal efficiency had been reached.
however, the  <dig> taq-unit group quickly reached a plateau and its slope started declining, unlike that one of the  <dig> taq-unit group.
this occurrence suggests that the highest taq concentration tested promoted mis-priming.
mis-priming leads to co-amplification of non-specific targets together with the desired amplicon.
because the probe is designed to selectively bind to the intended template only, fluorescent signals decline in case of non-specific amplification.
it is interesting to notice that this did not happen when the samples still contained  <dig> units of taq but only one pair of primers .
in spite of the higher amount of available taq in the single-amplicon assays when compared to the duplexes , more mis-priming occurred in the duplexes due to the addition of the xist primers.
in a similar experiment , these results were confirmed by agarose gel analysis of the amplification products of the duplex assay in the presence of  <dig> units of taq  or  <dig> units of taq .
the above data demonstrate that the concentration of taq polymerase needs to be optimized based both on the number and the sequences of the primers added to a multiplex reaction, in order to obtain maximal efficiency without mis-priming.
in addition, they illustrate the diagnostic potential of the slopes from late-pcr real-time assays.
these slopes are the result of linear amplification and are, therefore, much more sensitive to changes in pcr efficiency than symmetric pcr slopes.
we have found that in suboptimal conditions, when one of the amplicons in a duplex is generated more efficiently than the other, the slope of the weaker amplicon changes depending on the presence or absence as well as on the abundance of the first, "stronger" template.
taking advantage of this characteristic, we have titrated primesafe- <dig>  a reagent that prevents mis-priming  in order to obtain the best amplification conditions for both oct <dig> and xist amplicons, independent of their relative abundance.
the real-time pcr plots generated by serial dilutions of standard genomic dna in the optimized duplex assay are reported in fig.
3a.
at the appropriate fluorescence scale for each of the two molecular beacons used, the xist  and oct <dig>  amplification curves coincided, simplifying the process of ct-based quantification of unknown samples.
in addition, different amounts of templates at the beginning of the reaction produced proportionally different levels of final  fluorescence.
the sensitivity of this assay was proven by co-amplification of oct <dig> and xist genomic dna from single blastomeres ; for these "no rt" experiments, pcr was performed directly after cell lysis.
oct <dig> and xist rna + dna measurements in series of blastomeres of male and female 8-cell embryos
a rt step was introduced before pcr to measure total  oct4/xist templates in embryos or blastomeres.
female embryos were easily identified by the presence of xist transcripts in their blastomeres; male embryos were characterized by the absence of xist rna from all cells comprising the embryo.
several observations confirmed that quantification of oct <dig> and xist copy numbers was accurate.
for instance, as expected single male blastomeres contained only one xist template, a single copy of genomic dna on their x chromosome , while single female blastomeres contained multiple xist templates due to the presence of xist rna, as indicated by their lower ct values .
conversely, blastomeres of both sexes contained oct <dig> rna and their signals  arose several cycles earlier than that of a single copy of oct <dig> amplified from a polar body .
the single-copy xist plots generated by male cells consistently arose about one cycle earlier than the single-copy oct <dig> signal of the polar body.
this result is in agreement with the fact that oct <dig> and xist signals had similar ct values in genomic standards built with male dna containing one copy of xist and two copies of oct <dig> per genome .
furthermore, the xist signals obtained from whole male 8-cell embryos had ct values about three cycles lower than the signal generated by single male cells .
this delta corresponds to the expected 8-fold increment in template numbers .
because male embryos do not express xist, they contain only eight copies of xist genomic dna; the data from these biological samples was, thus, also useful to confirm the reliability of our standards .
the broken lines in fig.
4b are the co-amplified oct <dig> plots of the samples analyzed; their shifts compared to the corresponding xist plots prove that oct <dig> rna was present and that the rt reaction had worked efficiently.
analysis of sets of blastomeres isolated from 8-cell embryos clearly demonstrated that both xist and oct <dig> are expressed to variable degrees in the cells of the same embryo.
figure  <dig> shows that, for each embryo processed , the recovered cells can consistently be arranged according to a gradient of xist or oct <dig> rna content .
the mean oct <dig> rna content of our samples was lower than the mean xist rna content .
oct <dig> rna levels were not significantly different when calculated separately for female and male embryos in order to allow a better comparison to xist measurements, which included only female blastomeres .
total xist and oct <dig> rna content per embryo varied substantially, even considering that not all cells were recovered from each specimen, although xist rna levels fell in the range that we have reported previously using symmetric pcr  <cit> .
to some extent, such variability was linked to the embryos' developmental progress, as illustrated by the real-time pcr plots in fig.
<dig> .
the fluorescent signals in these charts were generated by single blastomeres from a 7-cell embryo and from 8-cell embryos that: i) had just reached this stage , or ii) contained completely separated cells with clearly identifiable boundaries , or iii) were compacting .
expression of both genes under study generally increased as embryos progressed through the 8-cell stage, as shown by the right-to-left shift of the plots of the compacting embryos compared to the early 8-cell embryos.
samples of the three groups, however, overlapped considerably as it could be expected from the data reported in fig.
<dig>  because each embryo  contained high- and low-expressing cells.
in the case of oct <dig> rna, this result was also partly explained by the finding that most female embryos developed more slowly than male embryos of the same group, as already described by other authors  <cit> .
quantification of oct <dig> rna levels in cells from embryos at the 7- to very early 8-cell stage indicated that oct <dig> expression is initially similar in pairs of daughter cells.
in the experiment summarized in fig.
<dig>  three embryos were processed soon after they had passed the 6-cell stage.
two of the embryos were comprised by eight cells and were easily separated in two quartets upon zona drilling and gentle pipetting .
further and longer pipetting of the quartets produced four pairs of blastomeres , which were in turn divided into eight single blastomeres .
the third embryo analyzed was a 7-cell embryo which was disassembled in similar manner, except that the first separation produced one quartet and one triplet including a cell visibly bigger than the others.
bar graphs of the same color in fig.
7b show the oct <dig> rna + dna content of cells from pairs; bar graphs of the same hue  represent results obtained from cell quartets .
in all instances, oct <dig> rna levels were similar in cells of the same pair, with the exception of one pair in each embryo.
it is possible that the pair of blastomeres containing different amounts of oct <dig> transcripts was the first among the four to divide and that differences in oct <dig> rna content between sister cells were being established as the cell cycle progressed.
correlation analysis of oct <dig> and xist rna levels in series of blastomeres of female 8-cell embryos
although the 8-cell embryos analyzed in this work were comprised by cells with different amounts of oct <dig> and xist rna , we did not find at this point in development a consistent correlation, either positive or negative, in the expression levels of these two genes in individual blastomeres of the same embryo.
figure  <dig> shows the results obtained from the quantification of oct <dig> and xist rna  + dna  copy numbers in the blastomeres recovered from five female embryos.
in each graph the recovered cells are arranged in order of increasing xist template contents  and the oct <dig> template contents of the same cells are shown by the adjacent green bars.
only in one case  did we observe an overall reciprocal oct4/xist expression pattern which included all cells recovered from that embryo, so that blastomeres containing more xist transcripts had gradually less oct <dig> rna and vice versa.
in the other embryos oct <dig> and xist expression levels per cell appear to be unrelated.
however, strongly reversed expression was observed in specific blastomeres , suggesting the possibility that in these embryos establishment of differential patterns was in an initial phase and restricted to some cells.
discussion and
CONCLUSIONS
investigators trying to develop assays for the accurate multiplex quantification of gene expression in small samples face many technical hurdles  <cit> .
we report here that the combination of single-tube puramp sample preparation and late-pcr offers a new and effective strategy to overcome these problems.
it is now possible to simultaneously generate multiple amplicons with optimized efficiency, even when the initial numbers of target sequences differ by several orders of magnitude.
oct <dig> rna is present in all cleavage-stage blastomeres, while xist rna is present in hundreds of copies in female cells but is absent from male cells.
the simultaneous measurement of these two transcripts in embryos of both sexes presents, therefore, a challenging situation, because it requires that one amplicon  is reliably generated with equal efficiency and sensitivity in the absence as well as in the presence of high amounts of a second amplicon .
in our study, oct <dig> amplification was not affected by xist co-amplification, as established by careful analysis of the slopes of the real-time plots generated by different concentrations of each template, a very sensitive diagnostic parameter of late-pcr.
furthermore, no significant differences were observed in the oct <dig> rna contents of male and female embryos, independently from the absence or presence of xist rna and even though, on average, male embryos develop to the 8-cell stage faster than female embryos  <cit> .
thus, late-pcr offers a highly advantageous alternative to other quantitative pcr-based strategies that require prior knowledge of the relative concentration of the different templates to be amplified and, hence, are suited to multiplexing of internal standards but cannot be utilized for unknown samples  <cit> .
in addition, the plots generated during real-time late-pcr are linear and, therefore, the fluorescence intensities reached after a given number of cycles are proportional to the number of target sequences present at the beginning of the reaction.
this feature of late-pcr and rt-late-pcr opens up the possibility of end-point quantification of multiple amplicons.
preliminary experiments carried out in this laboratory have already demonstrated the validity of this approach and we envision the future application of this technique to gene expression quantification.
the present study proves that cells comprising the same embryos contain markedly dissimilar levels of both oct <dig> and xist transcripts, an indication that 8-cell blastomeres are not equivalent in their developmental properties, in agreement with the hypothesis that lineage commitment in the mammalian embryo starts very early  <cit>  and possibly at the time of fertilization  <cit> .
quantification of differential expression of genes involved in development contributes to this hypothesis at a deeper level than possible with traditional non-quantitative techniques, such as fluorescence in situ hybridization , agarose gel electrophoresis and immunofluorescence.
for example, gel analysis suggests that the presence of oct <dig> rna in human 8-cell embryos is limited to a subset of blastomeres  <cit> , while this work demonstrates that each embryo is comprised by an assortment of low-to-high expressing cells.
although we cannot exclude species-specific differences, our findings support a "gradient" model of gene activation that can be reconciled with the well-known regulative capacity of the mammalian embryo  <cit>  more easily than an "on/off" model.
in addition, analysis of newly-formed blastomeres, identified through two division cycles based on their surviving connections  <cit> , reveals that these paired cells contain similar numbers of oct <dig> transcripts, a situation comparable to the equal oct <dig> status seen in daughter cell pairs of human embryonic stem cells  <cit> .
these data indicate that differences in oct <dig> expression among 8-cell embryonic blastomeres are established sometimes after cell division and are probably regulated by a number of unknown factors.
it is possible that cells that most actively transcribe oct <dig> are initially fated to be the founders of the pluripotent icm and germ cell lineages  <cit> .
in the case of stress, death or removal of these cells for genetic testing, however, oct <dig> expression in other blastomeres could be up-regulated to levels adequate for the formation of a new pluripotent lineage, thus preserving the integrity of the developing embryo.
a similar regulation pathway can be envisioned for the correct expression of xist in the te lineage, although the 8-cell stage may be too early for the full establishment of complementary expression patterns of these two genes in all cells comprising an embryo.
it should also be kept in mind that, in spite of its advantages for monitoring embryonic development, the use of frozen-thawed or cultured embryos rather than ex vivo specimens may lead to some alteration in gene expression patterns, even though a recent, large-scale study indicates that expression levels at the 8-cell stage are almost unaffected by culture in vitro  <cit> .
beyond the details of our particular experimental model, the achievement of reliably quantitative multiplex measurements of gene expression in single cells is meaningful for a wide variety of applications.
for instance, the ability to identify blastomeres with specific developmental potential at the earliest possible stage would have great relevance for embryonic stem cells preparation  <cit> .
quantification of the activation of oct <dig> and other genes involved in maintaining pluripotency is a step necessary to reach this goal, as demonstrated by an increasing number of reports  <cit> .
on the other hand, the advancing knowledge that 8-cell blastomeres are not developmentally equivalent as assumed in the past also carries implications for the practice of preimplantation genetic diagnostics, which requires the random resection of at least one blastomere from human embryos  <cit> .
testing expression levels of specific genes in the ablated blastomeres may, however, offset the disadvantages of the procedure by providing additional information on the embryo's health, assuming that analysis of one blastomere was reliably representative for the entire embryo.
preliminary experiments in our laboratory indicate, for example, that transcription of the stress chaperone hsp <dig> is up-regulated in slow-growing embryos .
a similar increased expression of heat shock protein  <dig> also occurs in microsatellite-unstable colorectal cancers and is correlated with prognosis  <cit> .
on a larger scale, epigenetic analyses of normal and tumor cells have recently revealed a wide array of changes in genetic activity in cells that have undergone cancerous transformation  <cit> .
intensive work is under way to identify which of those changes could be most valuable for use as diagnostic tools.
improvements in the methods of multiplexed quantification of gene expression thus hold great promise also for this emerging field of studies, particularly when such methods are suitable for small-sample or single-cell analysis as the one described in this work.

 accurate quantification of multiple target sequences by real-time polymerase chain reaction has been proven difficult to achieve, particularly for measuring numbers of rna transcripts, rather than of dna copies. in fact, while different gene sequences are represented in the genome in similar numbers, transcript levels of different genes can vary widely. moreover, changes in gene expression are often rapid and transient in response to stimuli, stress, or cellular events such as cell division and cell differentiation. in order to detect meaningful variations in transcript numbers it is, thus, necessary to measure them in series of single cells rather than in cell cohorts where individual differences could be lost to "background noise." from all of the above considerations it follows that a convenient and reliable experimental approach, sensitive enough to measure rna copy numbers in individual cells, is essential for multiplex quantification of gene expression in biological systems. we have recently developed an entirely single-tube method to measure mrna levels in individual cells. for that and a previous study we co-amplified and simultaneously quantified rna and dna copies of the xist and the sry genes in mouse embryos and blastomeres. these two genes were chosen because they have sexually distinct patterns of expression in the early embryo. female cells contain two copies of the xist gene, one on each x-chromosome, and high levels of xist transcripts but lack the sry-bearing y-chromosome, while cells from early-stage male embryos have a single unexpressed copy of the xist gene on the x-chromosome and a single unexpressed copy of sry on the y-chromosome. hence, only xist templates were amplified from female samples, while male embryos always generated equal numbers of xist and sry amplicons. in these studies we were, therefore, never faced with the more common and problematic situation of having to simultaneously quantify unequal amounts of different target sequences, a technical challenge of great general interest. in fact, conventional symmetric pcr is not easily utilized in this situation due to the exponential nature of the reaction. with this method, abundant templates generate amplicons much more rapidly than scarcer templates and the reaction is progressively shut down by these early-accumulating double-stranded molecules that sequester the dna polymerase, and by a number of other factors. in the case of real-time pcr the fluorescent signal of the most abundant amplicon will reach its threshold cycle and plateau unaffected by the presence of any other less represented template. amplification of the less numerous templates, on the other hand, will be greatly hindered. thus, low copy number templates will either go undetected or their abundance will be under-estimated based on their delayed ct values. linear-after-the-exponential -pcr, invented in our laboratory, provides a much more reliable strategy for the quantification of multiplexed templates. this approach combines the efficiency of exponential amplification in the very early phases of the reaction with the advantages of linear amplification. the switch between the exponential and the linear phases of late-pcr occurs at the ct, independently for each template, so that template quantification is achieved exactly as in symmetric pcr. after the ct is reached, a single strand of each amplicon continues to accumulate linearly and, thus, at a rate much slower than in symmetric pcr. this feature and the fact that single-stranded amplicons do not engage the polymerase ensure efficient amplification of abundant as well as rare templates in a sample. moreover, single-stranded amplicons afford great flexibility for the design of specific probes because the probe is free to bind to the amplicon without having to compete with a complementary strand. single-stranded late-pcr products can also be easily and directly sequenced to confirm their identity and purity. as reported here, the properties of late-pcr have enabled us to expand our earlier studies on differential gene expression in blastomeres of preimplantation mouse embryos. we focus in particular on the 8-cell stage embryo prior to compaction, when individual blastomeres can still be dissected and collected with a limited amount of manipulation. this developmental stage immediately precedes the formation of an embryo comprised by inner and outer cells containing distinct sets of proteins in response to their different surroundings. it is therefore plausible to hypothesize that differences in gene expression between blastomeres of early 8-cell embryos may presage subsequent cell fate and, thus, may identify the founders of the cell lineages established during the last phase of preimplantation, the blastocyst stage. xist rna is an untranslated transcript responsible for x-chromosome silencing and dosage compensation in female cells. its expression precedes x-chromosome inactivation and xist rna is present in cleavage-stage embryonic blastomeres. in mouse blastocysts, xist expression is paternally-imprinted; xist rna is restricted to the cells of the trophectoderm surrounding the embryo and destined to generate extraembryonic tissues such as the placenta, while it is almost absent from the pluripotent inner cell mass that gives origin to the embryo proper. the gene for the transcription factor oct presents a reciprocal expression pattern, being highly transcribed in the icm and down-regulated in the te. initial studies on cleaving embryos have shown that the oct protein is ubiquitously present in the blastomeres starting at the 4-cell stage, but cell-to-cell differences were not assessed. more recently, the importance of quantitative data has become increasingly clear because expression of the oct gene is necessary to maintain cell pluripotency via a stringently dose-dependent regulatory process. variations in oct levels above or below the required dosage produce cellular differentiation and usually consist in this gene's repression concomitant to activation of lineage- or tissue-specific genes. hence, cells maintaining critical amounts of oct rna during early development are candidate to be icm precursors, while lower oct rna levels and elevated xist expression may indicate a trophectodermal fate. we and others have already reported that blastomeres of mouse 8-cell embryos contain different amounts of xist rna. non-quantitative analyses of human cleavage-stage blastomeres have also shown a variable distribution of oct rna, but, for ethical reasons, the cells available for these studies are limited in number and quality. to more thoroughly address the question of cell lineage onset, in the present work we simultaneously measured xist and oct rna levels in series of blastomeres from male and female mouse embryos at the 8-cell stage. the results presented in this paper are the first report of quantification of cdna with late-pcr, and demonstrate the utility of this technique for gene expression studies, particularly at the single-cell level where multiplexing targets is highly desirable.  specificity of the oct late-pcr assay and identification of oct pseudogenes as detailed elsewhere, our approach is to co-amplify both the cdna and genomic dna of each gene under study by designing pcr primers within one of the gene's exons. single cells or embryos are lysed directly into a pcr tube and both dna and rna molecules are released and de-proteinized in the same, single vessel where reverse transcription and pcr are also carried out. this strategy optimizes the accuracy of quantification and offers three main advantages. first, it allows the use of genomic dna for standardization, ensuring that pcr efficiency will be exactly the same for the standard and the samples analyzed. second, it makes it possible to count dna copy numbers in the absence of rt or in cells or embryos that do not express the gene of interest. the presence of the genomic sequence in the sample tells us that the cell has been successfully transferred to the assay tube, even in the absence of rna. this feature is also useful to identify rnase contamination problems if quantitative pcr analysis demonstrates the presence of the expected gene sequence but not of its transcripts. third, co-amplification of genomic dna and cdna eliminates the need for dnase digestion, a step known to affect rna recovery. construction of a quantitative oct dna-specific pcr assay presented a number of technical challenges because this gene is part of a highly homologous and conserved family of transcription factors. oct appears to be the most actively transcribed gene of this group during early mammalian embryogenesis, decreasing the concern for non-specific amplification of homologous rnas, although some oct and oct expression has also been reported. at the dna level, however, the concern remains, compounded by the high frequency of retrotransposition observed for embryonic stem cell-specific genes including oct. additionally, the oct sequence is highly gc-rich, which favors secondary structure and requires very stringent parameters to ensure specific but efficient amplification, particularly when a second primer pair and two probes are introduced in a duplex reaction. by running a blast search we identified sequences highly homologous to oct mrna on mouse chromosome and chromosome. the presence of these previously unreported pseudogenes was not surprising, based on similar findings in the human and bovine genomes. based on this knowledge and avoiding sequences repeated in the mouse genome, we constructed an oct4-specific late-pcr assay taking advantage of the flexibility that this technique affords for primer design. a longer, high tm primer was designed from a very gc-rich sequence in order to include several nucleotides different from the most homologous pseudogene, while a shorter, lower tm primer could be selected in an area of the gene less homologous to other dna sequences. validation of the oct rt-late-pcr assay in a biological system and by sequencing oct expression was initially analyzed in individual embryos at the late blastocyst stage, as illustrated by the examples in fig. the blue line shows the oct amplification plot generated by a single blastocyst that had undergone rt before pcr and, therefore, contained both genomic dna and cdna. the pink line, in contrast, shows the oct amplification plot generated by a single blastocyst that did not undergo rt before pcr and, therefore, contained only genomic dna. serial dilutions of purified genomic dna were assayed in parallel with the embryos and used to provide a standard for quantification of the oct template copy numbers. the ct values of the standards are shown in the figure by color-coded arrows and reflect the fact that each genome contains two copies of the oct gene. the blue line crosses the threshold one cycle after the 2000-copy marker, indicating that this sample contained total oct templates. the copy number calculated from the ct value of the pink line was corresponding to cells. the template number difference between the "+rt" and the "no rt" samples confirmed active oct expression, as expected in blastocyst-stage embryos. as a next step, we separately analyzed oct expression in each of the two lineages present in blastocyst stage embryos. single te cells or small groups of te cells protruding from the zona pellucida in blastocysts that had initiated hatching could be removed from the embryo and were tested for their oct rna + dna content. the green line in fig. shows the amplification plot obtained from a single te cell after rt-pcr. this signal was converted to only four template copies, at least two of which are genomic dna, consistent with the expected down-regulation of oct expression in te cells. the additional two copies may be residual oct rna or genomic dna, if the te cell had completed dna duplication. we then measured oct expression in icms extracted from blastocysts by immunosurgery. the icm isolated from each blastocyst was divided in two aliquots, one processed by rt-pcr and one by pcr only. immunosurgery requires the use of embryos at the very early blastocyst stage; for this reason, the oct rna levels found in these icms cannot be directly compared to those measured in the mature blastocysts. however, the Δct between the pink and the blue line is larger for the isolated icm than for the whole blastocysts, signaling the presence of a higher oct rna copy number per cell in the icm. icm cells comprise only about one-third of the blastocyst's cells, thus lower levels of oct transcripts per cell in whole blastocysts than in isolated icms are consistent with the expected active oct expression in the cells of the inner mass and down-regulation in the te. taken together, these quantitative data provided a validation of the specificity of our late-pcr assay in a known biological system. we further confirmed by sequencing the specificity of the oct amplicons generated from either "+rt" or "no rt" samples prepared from 8-cell embryos. as expected, both genomic dna and cdna amplicons had the same sequence, identical to that of the oct gene at the designated amplification site. sequencing of both the "+rt" and "no rt" amplicons confirmed that the nucleotide in position of this sequence is a c, and not a t as reported in the oct mrna sequence that we had used to design the primers and the probe. since neither primers nor probe included this residue, pcr results are unaffected. construction and optimization of a duplex late-pcr assay for simultaneous quantification of oct and xist templates co-amplification of xist templates together with the oct templates described above was achieved following the same strategy. however, the introduction of a second pair of primers in the reaction required a second level of optimization of the assay, which took in account possible new, non-specific interactions involving the additional oligonucleotides as well as the higher rate at which taq polymerase is used in a multiplex pcr. we found that the optimal concentration of taq polymerase to be used for late-pcr assays can be established by analysis of the real-time amplification plots. the oct amplification plots generated by the same amount of genomic dna in the presence of different taq polymerase concentrations are reported in fig. the thin lines were obtained from amplification of oct templates only, while the thick lines show amplification of oct in the duplex assay. when only one pair of primers was present, increasing taq concentration from to or units per assay had the effect of making the slope of the signals steeper, due to increased amplification efficiency. the signals produced in the presence of and units per assay were interdispersed, suggesting that maximal efficiency had been reached around this level. as expected, the slopes of the lines generated during the duplex reactions were in all cases lower than those generated by amplification of a single amplicon, because the taq polymerase was used at twice that rate. as in the case of the single-amplicon late-pcr, augmenting taq concentration in the duplex reaction from to or units per assay resulted in an increase of the signals' slopes. there was no further increase in the initial slope of the taq-unit group when compared to the initial slope of the taq-unit group, again suggesting that maximal efficiency had been reached. however, the taq-unit group quickly reached a plateau and its slope started declining, unlike that one of the taq-unit group. this occurrence suggests that the highest taq concentration tested promoted mis-priming. mis-priming leads to co-amplification of non-specific targets together with the desired amplicon. because the probe is designed to selectively bind to the intended template only, fluorescent signals decline in case of non-specific amplification. it is interesting to notice that this did not happen when the samples still contained units of taq but only one pair of primers. in spite of the higher amount of available taq in the single-amplicon assays when compared to the duplexes, more mis-priming occurred in the duplexes due to the addition of the xist primers. in a similar experiment, these results were confirmed by agarose gel analysis of the amplification products of the duplex assay in the presence of units of taq or units of taq. the above data demonstrate that the concentration of taq polymerase needs to be optimized based both on the number and the sequences of the primers added to a multiplex reaction, in order to obtain maximal efficiency without mis-priming. in addition, they illustrate the diagnostic potential of the slopes from late-pcr real-time assays. these slopes are the result of linear amplification and are, therefore, much more sensitive to changes in pcr efficiency than symmetric pcr slopes. we have found that in suboptimal conditions, when one of the amplicons in a duplex is generated more efficiently than the other, the slope of the weaker amplicon changes depending on the presence or absence as well as on the abundance of the first, "stronger" template. taking advantage of this characteristic, we have titrated primesafe- a reagent that prevents mis-priming in order to obtain the best amplification conditions for both oct and xist amplicons, independent of their relative abundance. the real-time pcr plots generated by serial dilutions of standard genomic dna in the optimized duplex assay are reported in fig. 3a. at the appropriate fluorescence scale for each of the two molecular beacons used, the xist and oct amplification curves coincided, simplifying the process of ct-based quantification of unknown samples. in addition, different amounts of templates at the beginning of the reaction produced proportionally different levels of final fluorescence. the sensitivity of this assay was proven by co-amplification of oct and xist genomic dna from single blastomeres; for these "no rt" experiments, pcr was performed directly after cell lysis. oct and xist rna + dna measurements in series of blastomeres of male and female 8-cell embryos a rt step was introduced before pcr to measure total oct4/xist templates in embryos or blastomeres. female embryos were easily identified by the presence of xist transcripts in their blastomeres; male embryos were characterized by the absence of xist rna from all cells comprising the embryo. several observations confirmed that quantification of oct and xist copy numbers was accurate. for instance, as expected single male blastomeres contained only one xist template, a single copy of genomic dna on their x chromosome, while single female blastomeres contained multiple xist templates due to the presence of xist rna, as indicated by their lower ct values. conversely, blastomeres of both sexes contained oct rna and their signals arose several cycles earlier than that of a single copy of oct amplified from a polar body. the single-copy xist plots generated by male cells consistently arose about one cycle earlier than the single-copy oct signal of the polar body. this result is in agreement with the fact that oct and xist signals had similar ct values in genomic standards built with male dna containing one copy of xist and two copies of oct per genome. furthermore, the xist signals obtained from whole male 8-cell embryos had ct values about three cycles lower than the signal generated by single male cells. this delta corresponds to the expected 8-fold increment in template numbers. because male embryos do not express xist, they contain only eight copies of xist genomic dna; the data from these biological samples was, thus, also useful to confirm the reliability of our standards. the broken lines in fig. 4b are the co-amplified oct plots of the samples analyzed; their shifts compared to the corresponding xist plots prove that oct rna was present and that the rt reaction had worked efficiently. analysis of sets of blastomeres isolated from 8-cell embryos clearly demonstrated that both xist and oct are expressed to variable degrees in the cells of the same embryo. figure shows that, for each embryo processed, the recovered cells can consistently be arranged according to a gradient of xist or oct rna content. the mean oct rna content of our samples was lower than the mean xist rna content. oct rna levels were not significantly different when calculated separately for female and male embryos in order to allow a better comparison to xist measurements, which included only female blastomeres. total xist and oct rna content per embryo varied substantially, even considering that not all cells were recovered from each specimen, although xist rna levels fell in the range that we have reported previously using symmetric pcr. to some extent, such variability was linked to the embryos' developmental progress, as illustrated by the real-time pcr plots in fig.. the fluorescent signals in these charts were generated by single blastomeres from a 7-cell embryo and from 8-cell embryos that: i) had just reached this stage, or ii) contained completely separated cells with clearly identifiable boundaries, or iii) were compacting. expression of both genes under study generally increased as embryos progressed through the 8-cell stage, as shown by the right-to-left shift of the plots of the compacting embryos compared to the early 8-cell embryos. samples of the three groups, however, overlapped considerably as it could be expected from the data reported in fig. because each embryo contained high- and low-expressing cells. in the case of oct rna, this result was also partly explained by the finding that most female embryos developed more slowly than male embryos of the same group, as already described by other authors. quantification of oct rna levels in cells from embryos at the 7- to very early 8-cell stage indicated that oct expression is initially similar in pairs of daughter cells. in the experiment summarized in fig. three embryos were processed soon after they had passed the 6-cell stage. two of the embryos were comprised by eight cells and were easily separated in two quartets upon zona drilling and gentle pipetting. further and longer pipetting of the quartets produced four pairs of blastomeres, which were in turn divided into eight single blastomeres. the third embryo analyzed was a 7-cell embryo which was disassembled in similar manner, except that the first separation produced one quartet and one triplet including a cell visibly bigger than the others. bar graphs of the same color in fig. 7b show the oct rna + dna content of cells from pairs; bar graphs of the same hue represent results obtained from cell quartets. in all instances, oct rna levels were similar in cells of the same pair, with the exception of one pair in each embryo. it is possible that the pair of blastomeres containing different amounts of oct transcripts was the first among the four to divide and that differences in oct rna content between sister cells were being established as the cell cycle progressed. correlation analysis of oct and xist rna levels in series of blastomeres of female 8-cell embryos although the 8-cell embryos analyzed in this work were comprised by cells with different amounts of oct and xist rna, we did not find at this point in development a consistent correlation, either positive or negative, in the expression levels of these two genes in individual blastomeres of the same embryo. figure shows the results obtained from the quantification of oct and xist rna + dna copy numbers in the blastomeres recovered from five female embryos. in each graph the recovered cells are arranged in order of increasing xist template contents and the oct template contents of the same cells are shown by the adjacent green bars. only in one case did we observe an overall reciprocal oct4/xist expression pattern which included all cells recovered from that embryo, so that blastomeres containing more xist transcripts had gradually less oct rna and vice versa. in the other embryos oct and xist expression levels per cell appear to be unrelated. however, strongly reversed expression was observed in specific blastomeres, suggesting the possibility that in these embryos establishment of differential patterns was in an initial phase and restricted to some cells. discussion and  investigators trying to develop assays for the accurate multiplex quantification of gene expression in small samples face many technical hurdles. we report here that the combination of single-tube puramp sample preparation and late-pcr offers a new and effective strategy to overcome these problems. it is now possible to simultaneously generate multiple amplicons with optimized efficiency, even when the initial numbers of target sequences differ by several orders of magnitude. oct rna is present in all cleavage-stage blastomeres, while xist rna is present in hundreds of copies in female cells but is absent from male cells. the simultaneous measurement of these two transcripts in embryos of both sexes presents, therefore, a challenging situation, because it requires that one amplicon is reliably generated with equal efficiency and sensitivity in the absence as well as in the presence of high amounts of a second amplicon. in our study, oct amplification was not affected by xist co-amplification, as established by careful analysis of the slopes of the real-time plots generated by different concentrations of each template, a very sensitive diagnostic parameter of late-pcr. furthermore, no significant differences were observed in the oct rna contents of male and female embryos, independently from the absence or presence of xist rna and even though, on average, male embryos develop to the 8-cell stage faster than female embryos. thus, late-pcr offers a highly advantageous alternative to other quantitative pcr-based strategies that require prior knowledge of the relative concentration of the different templates to be amplified and, hence, are suited to multiplexing of internal standards but cannot be utilized for unknown samples. in addition, the plots generated during real-time late-pcr are linear and, therefore, the fluorescence intensities reached after a given number of cycles are proportional to the number of target sequences present at the beginning of the reaction. this feature of late-pcr and rt-late-pcr opens up the possibility of end-point quantification of multiple amplicons. preliminary experiments carried out in this laboratory have already demonstrated the validity of this approach and we envision the future application of this technique to gene expression quantification. the present study proves that cells comprising the same embryos contain markedly dissimilar levels of both oct and xist transcripts, an indication that 8-cell blastomeres are not equivalent in their developmental properties, in agreement with the hypothesis that lineage commitment in the mammalian embryo starts very early and possibly at the time of fertilization. quantification of differential expression of genes involved in development contributes to this hypothesis at a deeper level than possible with traditional non-quantitative techniques, such as fluorescence in situ hybridization, agarose gel electrophoresis and immunofluorescence. for example, gel analysis suggests that the presence of oct rna in human 8-cell embryos is limited to a subset of blastomeres, while this work demonstrates that each embryo is comprised by an assortment of low-to-high expressing cells. although we cannot exclude species-specific differences, our findings support a "gradient" model of gene activation that can be reconciled with the well-known regulative capacity of the mammalian embryo more easily than an "on/off" model. in addition, analysis of newly-formed blastomeres, identified through two division cycles based on their surviving connections, reveals that these paired cells contain similar numbers of oct transcripts, a situation comparable to the equal oct status seen in daughter cell pairs of human embryonic stem cells. these data indicate that differences in oct expression among 8-cell embryonic blastomeres are established sometimes after cell division and are probably regulated by a number of unknown factors. it is possible that cells that most actively transcribe oct are initially fated to be the founders of the pluripotent icm and germ cell lineages. in the case of stress, death or removal of these cells for genetic testing, however, oct expression in other blastomeres could be up-regulated to levels adequate for the formation of a new pluripotent lineage, thus preserving the integrity of the developing embryo. a similar regulation pathway can be envisioned for the correct expression of xist in the te lineage, although the 8-cell stage may be too early for the full establishment of complementary expression patterns of these two genes in all cells comprising an embryo. it should also be kept in mind that, in spite of its advantages for monitoring embryonic development, the use of frozen-thawed or cultured embryos rather than ex vivo specimens may lead to some alteration in gene expression patterns, even though a recent, large-scale study indicates that expression levels at the 8-cell stage are almost unaffected by culture in vitro. beyond the details of our particular experimental model, the achievement of reliably quantitative multiplex measurements of gene expression in single cells is meaningful for a wide variety of applications. for instance, the ability to identify blastomeres with specific developmental potential at the earliest possible stage would have great relevance for embryonic stem cells preparation. quantification of the activation of oct and other genes involved in maintaining pluripotency is a step necessary to reach this goal, as demonstrated by an increasing number of reports. on the other hand, the advancing knowledge that 8-cell blastomeres are not developmentally equivalent as assumed in the past also carries implications for the practice of preimplantation genetic diagnostics, which requires the random resection of at least one blastomere from human embryos. testing expression levels of specific genes in the ablated blastomeres may, however, offset the disadvantages of the procedure by providing additional information on the embryo's health, assuming that analysis of one blastomere was reliably representative for the entire embryo. preliminary experiments in our laboratory indicate, for example, that transcription of the stress chaperone hsp is up-regulated in slow-growing embryos. a similar increased expression of heat shock protein also occurs in microsatellite-unstable colorectal cancers and is correlated with prognosis. on a larger scale, epigenetic analyses of normal and tumor cells have recently revealed a wide array of changes in genetic activity in cells that have undergone cancerous transformation. intensive work is under way to identify which of those changes could be most valuable for use as diagnostic tools. improvements in the methods of multiplexed quantification of gene expression thus hold great promise also for this emerging field of studies, particularly when such methods are suitable for small-sample or single-cell analysis as the one described in this work. 
this paper describes the first example of multiplex rt-late-pcr and its utility, when combined with puramp sample preparation, for quantitative analysis of transcript levels in single cells. we, thus, postulated that simultaneous quantification of oct and xist transcripts in individual blastomeres at the 8-cell stage could be informative as to their subsequent fate. our results demonstrate, however, that both oct and xist rna levels vary in individual blastomeres comprising the same embryo, with some cells having particularly elevated levels of either transcript. we overcame these difficulties by combining puramp, a single-tube method for rna preparation and quantification, with late-pcr, an advanced form of asymmetric pcr. with this technique, copy numbers of different rnas can be accurately measured independently from their relative abundance in a cell, a goal that cannot be achieved using symmetric pcr. we constructed a duplex rt-late-pcr assay for real-time measurement of oct and xist templates and confirmed its specificity and quantitative accuracy with different methods. the cells of the inner cell mass are pluripotent and express high levels of oct mrna, which is down-regulated in the surrounding trophectoderm. we then undertook analysis of sets of blastomeres isolated from embryos at the 8-cell stage. analysis of multiple embryos also shows that xist and oct expression levels are not correlated at the 8-cell stage, although transcription of both genes is up-regulated at this time in development. the formation of two distinctive cell lineages in preimplantation mouse embryos is characterized by differential gene expression. in addition, comparison of data from males and females allowed us to determine that the efficiency of the oct4/xist assay is unaffected by sex-related differences in gene expression. in contrast, the trophectoderm of female embryos contains xist mrna, which is absent from cells of the inner mass. prior to blastocyst formation, all blastomeres of female embryos still express both of these rnas. the technique illustrated in this work is relevant to a wide array of applications, such as stem cell and cancer cell analysis and preimplantation genetic diagnostics.
 the formation of two distinctive cell lineages in preimplantation mouse embryos is characterized by differential gene expression. the cells of the inner cell mass are pluripotent and express high levels of oct mrna, which is down-regulated in the surrounding trophectoderm. in contrast, the trophectoderm of female embryos contains xist mrna, which is absent from cells of the inner mass. prior to blastocyst formation, all blastomeres of female embryos still express both of these rnas. we, thus, postulated that simultaneous quantification of oct and xist transcripts in individual blastomeres at the 8-cell stage could be informative as to their subsequent fate. testing this hypothesis, however, presented numerous technical challenges. we overcame these difficulties by combining puramp, a single-tube method for rna preparation and quantification, with late-pcr, an advanced form of asymmetric pcr.  we constructed a duplex rt-late-pcr assay for real-time measurement of oct and xist templates and confirmed its specificity and quantitative accuracy with different methods. we then undertook analysis of sets of blastomeres isolated from embryos at the 8-cell stage. at this stage, all cells in the embryo are still pluripotent and morphologically equivalent. our results demonstrate, however, that both oct and xist rna levels vary in individual blastomeres comprising the same embryo, with some cells having particularly elevated levels of either transcript. analysis of multiple embryos also shows that xist and oct expression levels are not correlated at the 8-cell stage, although transcription of both genes is up-regulated at this time in development. in addition, comparison of data from males and females allowed us to determine that the efficiency of the oct4/xist assay is unaffected by sex-related differences in gene expression.  this paper describes the first example of multiplex rt-late-pcr and its utility, when combined with puramp sample preparation, for quantitative analysis of transcript levels in single cells. with this technique, copy numbers of different rnas can be accurately measured independently from their relative abundance in a cell, a goal that cannot be achieved using symmetric pcr. the technique illustrated in this work is relevant to a wide array of applications, such as stem cell and cancer cell analysis and preimplantation genetic diagnostics. 