Figure 4

Kinetics of maternal and zygotic RNA decay activities. (a) Quantification of mRNA decay by measuring global net decay amplitudes and estimating mRNA half-lives. The red line represents the assumed exponential decay between t₂ and t₃; dotted lines represents the possible non-exponential decay kinetics. (b) Distribution of net decay amplitudes in classes I to V. (c) Distribution of transcript half-lives in classes I to V. Significant differences in medians are indicated by brackets (pairwise comparisons, two-tailed Mann-Whitney test): ***P ≤ 0.001; ****P < 0.0001. All box plots are shown with median and lower/upper quartile, whiskers from minimum to maximum. (d) mRNA decay rates and half-lives for selected genes. (e) Timing of mRNA decay: early versus late decay in classes II to V. Dotted lines indicate the ratio of early and late decay (1:1 or 1:4). Class labels and color codes are as in Figure 3b.