Department of Molecular Biology, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
Bioresource Engineering Division, Bioresource Center, RIKEN, Tsukuba, Japan.
Elife. 2024 Jun 24;13:e95856. doi: 10.7554/eLife.95856.
Once fertilized, mouse zygotes rapidly proceed to zygotic genome activation (ZGA), during which long terminal repeats (LTRs) of murine endogenous retroviruses with leucine tRNA primer (MERVL) are activated by a conserved homeodomain-containing transcription factor, DUX. However, -knockout embryos produce fertile mice, suggesting that ZGA is redundantly driven by an unknown factor(s). Here, we present multiple lines of evidence that the multicopy homeobox gene, , encodes a transcription factor that is highly expressed in mouse two-cell embryos and redundantly drives ZGA. Genome-wide profiling revealed that OBOX4 specifically binds and activates MERVL LTRs as well as a subset of murine endogenous retroviruses with lysine tRNA primer (MERVK) LTRs. Depletion of is tolerated by embryogenesis, whereas concomitant / depletion markedly compromises embryonic development. Our study identified OBOX4 as a transcription factor that provides genetic redundancy to preimplantation development.
一旦受精,小鼠受精卵迅速进入合子基因组激活(ZGA)阶段,在此期间,具有亮氨酸 tRNA 引物的小鼠内源性逆转录病毒的长末端重复序列(MERVL)被一个保守的含同源结构域的转录因子 DUX 激活。然而,-/- 胚胎产生可育的小鼠,这表明 ZGA 是由未知的因素(多个)冗余驱动的。在这里,我们提出了多条证据表明,多拷贝同源盒基因 OBOX4 编码一个转录因子,该转录因子在小鼠 2 细胞胚胎中高度表达,并冗余驱动 ZGA。全基因组分析显示,OBOX4 特异性结合并激活 MERVL LTR 以及一组具有赖氨酸 tRNA 引物(MERVK)LTR 的小鼠内源性逆转录病毒。/ 缺失胚胎发生是可以耐受的,而同时 / 缺失则显著损害胚胎发育。我们的研究确定了 OBOX4 作为一个转录因子,为植入前发育提供遗传冗余。