Abstract
After fertilization, the zygotic genome is activated through two phases, minor zygotic activation (ZGA) and major ZGA.Recently, it was suggested that DUX is expressed during minor ZGA and activates some genes during major ZGA. However, it has not been proven that Dux is expressed during minor ZGA and functions to activate major ZGA genes, because there are several Dux paralogs that may be expressed in zygotes instead of Dux. In this study, we found that more than a dozen Dux paralogs, as well as Dux, are expressed during minor ZGA. Overexpression of some of these genes induced increased expression of major ZGA genes. These results suggest that multiple Dux paralogs are expressed to ensure a sufficient amount of functional Dux and its paralogs which are generated during a short period of minor ZGA with a low transcriptional activity. The mechanism by which multiple Dux paralogs are expressed is discussed.
Highlights
After fertilization, the zygotic genome is activated through two phases, minor zygotic activation (ZGA) and major ZGA
ZGA proceeds in two phases, minor and major ZGA, and the pattern of gene expression is dramatically changed between these two phases
During minor ZGA, which occurs from the S phase of the 1-cell stage to the G1 phase of the 2-cell stage, a relatively low level of transcription occurs in a large part of gene and intergenic regions, and regions that code for retrotransposons
Summary
The zygotic genome is activated through two phases, minor zygotic activation (ZGA) and major ZGA. It was suggested that DUX is expressed during minor ZGA and activates some genes during major ZGA. Overexpression of some of these genes induced increased expression of major ZGA genes These results suggest that multiple Dux paralogs are expressed to ensure a sufficient amount of functional Dux and its paralogs which are generated during a short period of minor ZGA with a low transcriptional activity. Microinjection of cRNA encoding Dux into blastomeres of late 2-cell stage embryos results in the arrest of embryos at the 4-cell s tage[9], suggesting that transient expression of Dux is necessary during minor ZGA to induce the transcription of some of major ZGA genes. We report that some Dux family genes are expressed and function in early mouse pre-implantation embryos
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