Johanna Gassler, Wataru Kobayashi, Imre Gáspár, Siwat Ruangroengkulrith, Adarsh Mohanan, Laura Gómez Hernández, Pavel Kravchenko, Maximilian Kümmecke, Aleksandar Lalic, Nikita Rifel, Robert John Ashburn, Maciej Zaczek, Antoine Vallot, Laura Cuenca Rico, Sabrina Ladstätter, Kikuë Tachibana
Life begins with a switch in genetic control from the maternal to the embryonic genome during zygotic genome activation (ZGA). Despite its importance, the essential regulators of ZGA remain largely unknown in mammals. Based on de novo motif searches, we identified the orphan nuclear receptor Nr5a2 as a key activator of major ZGA in mouse 2-cell embryos. Nr5a2 is required for progression beyond the 2-cell stage. It binds to its motif within SINE B1/Alu retrotransposable elements found in cis -regulatory regions of ZGA genes...
November 24, 2022: Science