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Updated: Aug 14, 2025

Loss- and Gain-of-function Approach to Investigate Early Cell Fate Determinants in Preimplantation Mouse Embryos
08:43

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Published on: June 6, 2016

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Take your mother's ferry: preimplantation embryo development requires maternal karyopherins for nuclear transport

Momal Sharif1, Laura Detti1,2, Ignatia B Van den Veyver1,3,4

  • 1Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

The Journal of Clinical Investigation
|January 17, 2023
PubMed

The genetic basis of preimplantation embryo arrest is slowly being unraveled. Recent discoveries point to maternally expressed proteins required for cellular functions before the embryonic genome is activated. In this issue of the JCI, Wang, Miyamoto, et al. suggest a critical role for karyopherin-mediated protein cargo transport between oocyte cytoplasm and nucleus. Defective maternal oocyte-expressed human karyopherin subunit α7 (KPNA7) and mouse KPNA2 fail to bind a critical substrate, ribosomal L1 domain-containing protein 1 (RSL1D1), affecting its transport to the nucleus. As shown in embryos of Kpna2-null females, the consequences are disrupted zygotic genome activation and arrest of development. These findings have important implications for diagnosis and treatment of female infertility.

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