Wang P Jeremy, Pan Jieyan
Department of Animal Biology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 3800 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Chromosome Res. 2007;15(5):623-32. doi: 10.1007/s10577-007-1141-2.
Meiosis, a hallmark of sexual reproduction, reduces the chromatin complement by half to cope with genome doubling at fertilization and permits exchange of genetic material between parental genomes. Recent functional studies of novel proteins have greatly enhanced our understanding of the regulation of meiosis. The unique status of sex chromosomes in the male germ line may have shaped their content of germ line-intrinsic genes during evolution. Previously, a unique set of 36 spermatogonially expressed, mouse germ cell-specific genes was identified in one genomic screen. Thirteen of these genes have been disrupted in mice and two-thirds of these mouse mutants exhibit meiotic defects. Therefore, we hypothesize that the majority of uncharacterized germ cell-specific genes identified in the same screen, including 11 X-linked genes, might also play important roles in meiosis. In particular, we cite previously unpublished studies demonstrating that the NXF2 protein, an X-encoded factor, is present in early spermatocytes.
减数分裂是有性生殖的一个标志，它将染色质数量减半，以应对受精时基因组的加倍，并允许亲代基因组之间进行遗传物质交换。最近对新型蛋白质的功能研究极大地增进了我们对减数分裂调控的理解。雄性生殖系中性染色体的独特地位可能在进化过程中塑造了它们的生殖系固有基因含量。此前，在一次基因组筛选中鉴定出一组独特的36个在精原细胞中表达的小鼠生殖细胞特异性基因。其中13个基因已在小鼠中被破坏，并且这些小鼠突变体中有三分之二表现出减数分裂缺陷。因此，我们推测在同一筛选中鉴定出的大多数未表征的生殖细胞特异性基因，包括11个X连锁基因，可能在减数分裂中也发挥重要作用。特别是，我们引用了以前未发表的研究，这些研究表明NXF2蛋白（一种X编码因子）存在于早期精母细胞中。
