Extensive nuclear gyration and pervasive non-genic transcription during primordial germ cell development in zebrafish.
Stefan RedlAntonio Miguel de Jesus DominguesEdoardo CaspaniStefanie MöckelWilli SalvenmoserMaria Mendez-LagoRené F KettingPublished in: Development (Cambridge, England) (2021)
Primordial germ cells (PGCs) are the precursors of germ cells, which migrate to the genital ridge during early development. Relatively little is known about PGCs after their migration. We studied this post-migratory stage using microscopy and sequencing techniques, and found that many PGC-specific genes, including genes known to induce PGC fate in the mouse, are only activated several days after migration. At this same time point, PGC nuclei become extremely gyrated, displaying general broad opening of chromatin and high levels of intergenic transcription. This is accompanied by changes in nuage morphology, expression of large loci (PGC-expressed non-coding RNA loci, PERLs) that are enriched for retro-transposons and piRNAs, and a rise in piRNA biogenesis signatures. Interestingly, no nuclear Piwi protein could be detected at any time point, indicating that the zebrafish piRNA pathway is fully cytoplasmic. Our data show that the post-migratory stage of zebrafish PGCs holds many cues to both germ cell fate establishment and piRNA pathway activation.
Keyphrases
- genome wide
- germ cell
- skeletal muscle
- induced apoptosis
- cell cycle arrest
- transcription factor
- cell fate
- dna methylation
- poor prognosis
- endoplasmic reticulum stress
- gene expression
- dna damage
- high resolution
- cell death
- single molecule
- oxidative stress
- single cell
- bioinformatics analysis
- high speed
- long non coding rna
- big data
- artificial intelligence
- data analysis
- small molecule