Human reproduction is regulated by retrotransposons derived from ancient Hominidae-specific viral infections

Xinyu Xiang, Yu Tao, Jonathan DiRusso, Fei-Man Hsu, Jinchun Zhang, Ziwei Xue, Julien Pontis, Didier Trono, Wanlu Liu () and Amander T. Clark ()
Additional contact information
Xinyu Xiang: Zhejiang University
Yu Tao: University of California, Los Angeles
Jonathan DiRusso: University of California, Los Angeles
Fei-Man Hsu: University of California, Los Angeles
Jinchun Zhang: Zhejiang University
Ziwei Xue: Zhejiang University
Julien Pontis: Ecole Polytechnique Fe ́de ́rale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Didier Trono: Ecole Polytechnique Fe ́de ́rale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Wanlu Liu: Zhejiang University
Amander T. Clark: University of California, Los Angeles

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Abstract Germ cells are essential to pass DNA from one generation to the next. In human reproduction, germ cell development begins with the specification of primordial germ cells (PGCs) and a failure to specify PGCs leads to human infertility. Recent studies have revealed that the transcription factor network required for PGC specification has diverged in mammals, and this has a significant impact on our understanding of human reproduction. Here, we reveal that the Hominidae-specific Transposable Elements (TEs) LTR5Hs, may serve as TEENhancers (TE Embedded eNhancers) to facilitate PGC specification. LTR5Hs TEENhancers become transcriptionally active during PGC specification both in vivo and in vitro with epigenetic reprogramming leading to increased chromatin accessibility, localized DNA demethylation, enrichment of H3K27ac, and occupation of key hPGC transcription factors. Inactivation of LTR5Hs TEENhancers with KRAB mediated CRISPRi has a significant impact on germ cell specification. In summary, our data reveals the essential role of Hominidae-specific LTR5Hs TEENhancers in human germ cell development.

Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28105-1 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-28105-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28105-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().