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Loss- and Gain-of-function Approach to Investigate Early Cell Fate Determinants in Preimplantation Mouse Embryos
Published on: June 6, 2016
Manipulation of Promoter-Associated Noncoding RNAs in Mouse Early Embryos for Controlling Sequence-Specific
Nobuhiko Hamazaki1, Kinichi Nakashima1, Takuya Imamura2
1Department of Stem Cell Biology and Medicine, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Maidashi 3-1-1, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka, 812-8582, Japan.
Abstract:
In mammals, transcription in the zygote begins after fertilization. This transcriptional wave is called zygotic gene activation (ZGA). During ZGA, epigenetic modifications, such as DNA methylation and histone modifications, are dynamically and drastically reconstructed in a sequence-specific manner. However, how such orchestrated gene upregulation is regulated remains unknown. Recently, using microinjection techniques, we have revealed that a class of long noncoding RNAs, named promoter-associated noncoding RNAs (pancRNAs), mediates specific gene upregulation through promoter DNA demethylation during ZGA. Here, we describe the experimental methods available to control the expression levels of pancRNAs and to evaluate epigenetic status after pancRNA manipulation.

