Antonia Hauth, Jasper Panten, Emma Kneuss, Christel Picard, Nicolas Servant, Isabell Rall, Yuvia A Pérez-Rico, Lena Clerquin, Nila Servaas, Laura Villacorta, Ferris Jung, Christy Luong, Howard Y Chang, Judith B Zaugg, Oliver Stegle, Duncan T Odom, Agnese Loda, Edith Heard
In placental females, one copy of the two X chromosomes is largely silenced during a narrow developmental time window, in a process mediated by the non-coding RNA Xist 1 . Here, we demonstrate that Xist can initiate X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) well beyond early embryogenesis. By modifying its endogenous level, we show that Xist has the capacity to actively silence genes that escape XCI both in neuronal progenitor cells (NPCs) and in vivo , in mouse embryos. We also show that Xist plays a direct role in eliminating TAD-like structures associated with clusters of escapee genes on the inactive X chromosome, and that this is dependent on Xist's XCI initiation partner, SPEN 2 ...
March 12, 2024: bioRxiv