Department of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Kansas City, MO 64110, USA.
Science. 2020 Feb 21;367(6480):870-874. doi: 10.1126/science.aaw2601.
Diapause is a state of suspended development that helps organisms survive extreme environments. How diapause protects living organisms is largely unknown. Using the African turquoise killifish (), we show that diapause preserves complex organisms for extremely long periods of time without trade-offs for subsequent adult growth, fertility, and life span. Transcriptome analyses indicate that diapause is an active state, with dynamic regulation of metabolism and organ development genes. The most up-regulated genes in diapause include Polycomb complex members. The chromatin mark regulated by Polycomb, H3K27me3, is maintained at key developmental genes in diapause, and the Polycomb member CBX7 mediates repression of metabolism and muscle genes in diapause. CBX7 is functionally required for muscle preservation and diapause maintenance. Thus, vertebrate diapause is a state of suspended life that is actively maintained by specific chromatin regulators, and this has implications for long-term organism preservation.
休眠是一种暂停发育的状态，有助于生物在极端环境中生存。休眠如何保护生物在很大程度上是未知的。利用非洲蓝鳃太阳鱼（），我们表明休眠可以在没有对后续成体生长、生育力和寿命进行权衡的情况下，将复杂的生物体保存极长的时间。转录组分析表明，休眠是一种活跃的状态，代谢和器官发育基因的动态调节。休眠中上调最明显的基因包括多梳复合物成员。多梳复合物调节的染色质标记物 H3K27me3 在休眠中的关键发育基因中得到维持，多梳复合物成员 CBX7 介导了休眠中代谢和肌肉基因的抑制。CBX7 对于肌肉的保存和休眠的维持是功能必需的。因此，脊椎动物的休眠是一种悬停的生命状态，由特定的染色质调节剂主动维持，这对长期的生物保存具有重要意义。
