Proper expression of stage-specific genes is very important for early embryo development.The mRNA differential display was used to study the stage-specific genes in rabbit preimplantation embryos.A total of 42 positive differential fragments were obtained,of which 5 fragments had no homolog in the NCBI and EMBL.These fragments were submitted to the EMBL and accession numbers were given.All these 5 genes were specifically expressed in morula stage.Maternal-to-zygotic transition of rabbit starts from 8-16 cell stage,and therefore,these genes should be embryo-specific.This research would lay a foundation for further investigating the transcriptional modulation of rabbit preimplantation embryo development.