Institute of Plant Biology & Zürich-Basel Plant Science Center, University of Zürich, Zollikerstrasse 107, CH-8008 Zürich, Switzerland.
Curr Opin Genet Dev. 2013 Feb;23(1):72-4. doi: 10.1016/j.gde.2013.01.006. Epub 2013 Feb 28.
In plants and animals, embryo development becomes ultimately controlled by zygotic genes, but the timing of zygotic genome activation (ZGA) varies greatly between organisms. We recently showed that the transcriptome of young Arabidopsis embryos is dominated by maternal transcripts with a progressive ZGA under the maternal control of epigenetic pathways. In contrast, another study reported that both parental genomes contribute equally to the transcriptome of young embryos, suggesting that ZGA occurs immediately after fertilization. How to explain such dramatic differences? We propose that the discrepancies between these two studies likely reflect genuine biological differences between the two experiments, paving the road towards exciting discoveries on ZGA mechanisms in plants.
在动植物中，胚胎发育最终由合子基因控制，但合子基因组激活（ZGA）的时间在不同生物之间差异很大。我们最近表明，拟南芥早期胚胎的转录组主要由母体转录本组成，在母体通过表观遗传途径的控制下，ZGA 逐渐发生。相比之下，另一项研究表明，双亲基因组平等地为早期胚胎的转录组做出贡献，这表明 ZGA 发生在受精后立即。如何解释这种明显的差异呢？我们提出，这两项研究之间的差异可能反映了这两个实验之间的真实生物学差异，为植物 ZGA 机制的令人兴奋的发现铺平了道路。
