Feng Lijuan, Chen Xin
Department of Biology, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, United States.
Department of Biology, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, United States.
Curr Opin Genet Dev. 2015 Apr;31:20-7. doi: 10.1016/j.gde.2015.04.003. Epub 2015 May 1.
Unlike somatic cells, germ cells retain the potential to reproduce an entire new organism upon fertilization. In order to accomplish the process of fertilization, germ cells undergo an extreme cellular differentiation process known as gametogenesis in order to produce morphologically and functionally distinct oocyte and sperm. In addition to changes in genetic content changes from diploid to haploid, epigenetic mechanisms that modify chromatin state without altering primary DNA sequences have profound influence on germ cell differentiation and moreover, the transgenerational effect. In this review, we will go over the most recent discoveries on epigenetic regulations in germline differentiation and transgenerational inheritance across different metazoan species.
与体细胞不同,生殖细胞在受精后保留了繁殖全新生物体的潜力。为了完成受精过程,生殖细胞经历一种极端的细胞分化过程,即配子发生,以产生形态和功能上截然不同的卵母细胞和精子。除了遗传内容从二倍体变为单倍体的变化外,在不改变初级DNA序列的情况下改变染色质状态的表观遗传机制对生殖细胞分化以及跨代效应都有深远影响。在这篇综述中,我们将回顾不同后生动物物种在生殖系分化和跨代遗传方面表观遗传调控的最新发现。