Among amniote vertebrates, reptiles display the greatest variation in axial skeleton morphology. Only recently have they been used in gene expression studies of somitogenesis , challenging previous assumptions about the segmentation clock and axial patterning. An increasing number of reptile genomes and transcriptomes are becoming available as next-generation sequencing becomes more affordable. Information regarding gene sequence and structure can be used to design and synthesize labeled riboprobes by in vitro transcription for gene expression analysis by in situ hybridization, thus, enabling the characterization of spatial and temporal expression patterns of genes involved in somitogenesis, a topic of great interest within evolutionary developmental studies of vertebrates.
Keywords: Axial skeleton; Development; In situ hybridization; In vitro transcription; Reptile; Ribs; Somitogenesis; Vertebra.