Shenfei Sun, Yamei Jiang, Qiaoli Zhang, Hongjie Pan, Xinyang Li, Li Yang, Meina Huang, Wei Wei, Xiaoye Wang, Mengdi Qiu, Lihuan Cao, Hua He, Miao Yu, Hanmin Liu, Bing Zhao, Ning Jiang, Runsheng Li, Xinhua Lin
The switch from mitosis to meiosis ensures the successive formation of gametes. However, it remains unclear how meiotic initiation occurs within the context of chromatin. Recent studies have shown that zinc finger HIT-type containing 1 (Znhit1), a subunit of the SRCAP chromatin remodeling complex, plays essential roles in modulating the chromatin structure. Herein, we report that the germline-conditional deletion of Znhit1 in male mice specifically blocks meiotic initiation. We show that Znhit1 is required for meiotic prophase events, including synapsis, DNA double-strand break formation, and meiotic DNA replication...
April 11, 2022: Developmental Cell