Institute of Reproductive Medicine, Medical School of Nantong University, Nantong, Jiangsu, China.
NHC Key Laboratory of Male Reproduction and Genetics, Family Planning Research Institute of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou, China.
Endocrinology. 2021 Jan 1;162(1). doi: 10.1210/endocr/bqaa210.
During spermiogenesis, extensive histone modifications take place in developing haploid spermatids besides morphological alterations of the genetic material to form compact nuclei. Better understanding on the overall transcriptional dynamics and preferences of histones and enzymes involved in histone modifications may provide valuable information to dissect the epigenetic characteristics and unique chromatin status during spermiogenesis. Using single-cell RNA-Sequencing, the expression dynamics of histone variants, writers, erasers, and readers of histone acetylation and methylation, as well as histone phosphorylation, ubiquitination, and chaperones were assessed through transcriptome profiling during spermiogenesis. This approach provided an unprecedented panoramic perspective of the involving genes in epigenetic modifier/histone variant expression during spermiogenesis. Results reported here revealed the transcriptional ranks of histones, histone modifications, and their readers during spermiogenesis, emphasizing the unique preferences of epigenetic regulation in spermatids. These findings also highlighted the impact of spermatid metabolic preferences on epigenetic modifications. Despite the observed rising trend on transcription levels of all encoding genes and histone variants, the transcriptome profile of genes in histone modifications and their readers displayed a downward expression trend, suggesting that spermatid nuclei condensation is a progressive process that occurred in tandem with a gradual decrease in overall epigenetic activity during spermiogenesis.
在精子发生过程中，除了遗传物质的形态改变外，还会发生广泛的组蛋白修饰，以形成紧密的核。更好地了解参与组蛋白修饰的整体转录动态和偏好，可以为剖析精子发生过程中的表观遗传特征和独特染色质状态提供有价值的信息。通过单细胞 RNA 测序，通过精子发生过程中的转录组分析，评估了组蛋白变体、组蛋白乙酰化和甲基化的写入器、擦除器和读取器以及组蛋白磷酸化、泛素化和伴侣蛋白的表达动力学。这种方法提供了在精子发生过程中涉及表观遗传修饰剂/组蛋白变体表达的基因的空前全景视角。这里报道的结果揭示了精子发生过程中组蛋白、组蛋白修饰及其读取器的转录排名，强调了精子中独特的表观遗传调控偏好。这些发现还强调了精子代谢偏好对表观遗传修饰的影响。尽管所有编码基因和组蛋白变体的转录水平都观察到上升趋势，但组蛋白修饰及其读取器的基因的转录组图谱显示出下降的表达趋势，这表明精子核浓缩是一个渐进的过程，与精子发生过程中整体表观遗传活性的逐渐降低同时发生。
