Global analysis of chromatin dynamics in early embryonic development in the mouse

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15H05580
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Genome biology
• Research Institution: National Center for Child Health and Development
• Principal Investigator: Tomikawa Junko 国立研究開発法人国立成育医療研究センター, 周産期病態研究部, 研究員 (80534990)
• Research Collaborator: NISHIZONO Hirofumi 富山大学, 研究推進機構 研究推進総合支援センター, 助教 (10502289)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 全能性 / 反復配列 / 三次元構造

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Totipotent stem cells have some characteristic features. One of them is the transcriptional activation of repeat sequence DNAs, but its molecular mechanism is largely unknown. In mice, only the zygote and 2-cell stage blastomeres (2C) can generate an entire organism on their own, and are therefore regarded as totipotent cells. In this study, we explored the 2C-specific three-dimensional (3D) organization of genome. We found the possibilities that the repeat DNAs expressed in 2C-specific manner assembled into transcriptionally active chromatin architectures, and that these repeat elements were closely associated with ribosomal RNA gene (rDNA) loci. These 3D genome structure may establish the transcriptional profile of totipotent cells.

Free Research Field

分子生物学