TY - JOUR
T1 - Specification and epigenetic programming of the human germ line
AU - Tang, Walfred W.C.
AU - Kobayashi, Toshihiro
AU - Irie, Naoko
AU - Dietmann, Sabine
AU - Surani, M. Azim
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank J. Hackett for reading of the manuscript and members of the Surani laboratory for helpful discussions. Our work was funded by a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award to M.A.S, and by a Britain Israel Research and Academic Exchange (BIRAX) Initiative and a Croucher Cambridge International Scholarship to W.W.C.T. Research at the Gurdon Institute is funded by a core grant from the Wellcome Trust (092096) and Cancer Research UK (C6946/A14492). The authors apologize to colleagues whose work could not be cited owing to length limitations.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.
PY - 2016/10/1
Y1 - 2016/10/1
N2 - Primordial germ cells (PGCs), the precursors of sperm and eggs, are established in perigastrulation-stage embryos in mammals. Signals from extra-embryonic tissues induce a unique gene regulatory network in germline-competent cells for PGC specification. This network also initiates comprehensive epigenome resetting, including global DNA demethylation and chromatin reorganization. Mouse germline development has been studied extensively, but the extent to which such knowledge applies to humans was unclear. Here, we review the latest advances in human PGC specification and epigenetic reprogramming. The overall developmental dynamics of human and mouse germline cells appear to be similar, but there are crucial mechanistic differences in PGC specification, reflecting divergence in the regulation of pluripotency and early development.
AB - Primordial germ cells (PGCs), the precursors of sperm and eggs, are established in perigastrulation-stage embryos in mammals. Signals from extra-embryonic tissues induce a unique gene regulatory network in germline-competent cells for PGC specification. This network also initiates comprehensive epigenome resetting, including global DNA demethylation and chromatin reorganization. Mouse germline development has been studied extensively, but the extent to which such knowledge applies to humans was unclear. Here, we review the latest advances in human PGC specification and epigenetic reprogramming. The overall developmental dynamics of human and mouse germline cells appear to be similar, but there are crucial mechanistic differences in PGC specification, reflecting divergence in the regulation of pluripotency and early development.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84984791531&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84984791531&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/nrg.2016.88
DO - 10.1038/nrg.2016.88
M3 - Review article
C2 - 27573372
AN - SCOPUS:84984791531
SN - 1471-0056
VL - 17
SP - 585
EP - 600
JO - Nature Reviews Genetics
JF - Nature Reviews Genetics
IS - 10
ER -