Meiosis priming in the germline stem cell cycle in mice

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project Area: Analyses and regulation of germline epigenome
• Project/Area Number: 25112004
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (Research in a proposed research area)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Review Section: Biological Sciences
• Research Institution: Kyoto University
• Principal Investigator: CHUMA SHINICHIRO 京都大学, ウイルス・再生医科学研究所, 准教授 (20378889)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-06-28 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 生殖 / 幹細胞 / ゲノム / エピゲノム / 減数分裂 / 遺伝 / 発生

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The faithful transmission of genetic information is fundamental to germline stem cell cycles. One exception to this is meiosis when active recombination takes place. How such opposing control of genome stability is coordinated with developmental programs is not well understood. Previous studies have shown that retinoic acid plays a key role in meiosis initiation in mammals. However, retinoic acid is a pleiotropic factor, which for example promotes neurogenesis and not meiosis in pluripotent embryonic stem cells. By developing a culture condition to induce mitosis-to-meiosis transition from germline stem cells and by carrying out multiomics analyses, we found that germline stem cells are primed to enter into meiosis at transcriptional and epigenetic levels independently of retinoic acid. This “meiosis priming” program exhibits characteristic cross-talk regulation with genome stability genes during the developmental cycle of germline cells.

Free Research Field

発生生物学、遺伝学