One-way multivariate ANOVA was also used to compare the multivariate means in the gene expression data grouped by embryo stage (M, TM, EB, B, and XB). The analysis was based on the 81 genes with gene expression greater than the limit of detection of the assay. Scatter plots were used to visualize the group separation using the first 2 canonical variables. Dendrograms were used to demonstrate the clusters among the group means (based on applying an average distance linkage method to the matrix of Mahalanobis distances between group means).