Polycomb suppresses a female gene regulatory network in Sertoli cells
Maezawa, S.; Yukawa, M.; Hasegawa, K.; Sugiyama, R.; Hu, M.; Vidal, M.; Koseki, H.; Barski, A.; DeFalco, T.; Namekawa, S. H.
Show abstract
Gonadal sex determination is controlled by the support cells of testes and ovaries. In testes, the epigenetic mechanism that maintains cellular memory to suppress female sexual differentiation remains unknown. Here, we show that Polycomb suppresses a female gene regulatory network in Sertoli cells, the specific support cells for postnatal testes. Through genetic ablation, we removed Polycomb repressive complex 1 (PRC1) from embryonic Sertoli cells after sex determination. PRC1-depleted postnatal Sertoli cells exhibited defective proliferation and cell death, leading to the degeneration of adult testes. In adult Sertoli cells, PRC1 suppressed the specific, critical genes required for granulosa cells, the support cells of ovaries, thereby inactivating the female gene regulatory network. The underlying chromatin of female genes was coated with Polycomb-mediated repressive modifications: PRC1-mediated H2AK119ub and PRC2-mediated H3K27me3. Taken together, we identify a critical mechanism centered on Polycomb that maintains the male fate in adult testes.
Matching journals
The top 5 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.
Similar papers in this journal
- YTHDC2 serves a distinct late role in spermatocytes during germ cell differentiation 97%
- Essential roles of the ANKRD31-REC114 interaction in meiotic recombination and mouse spermatogenesis 96%
- An RNA binding regulatory cascade controls the switch from proliferation to differentiation in the Drosophila male germ line stem cell lineage 95%
Similar papers in this journal
- The gene regulatory landscape driving mouse gonadal supporting cell differentiation 97%
- Identification and characterization of BEND2 as a novel and key regulator of meiosis during mouse spermatogenesis 97%
- Origin, specification and differentiation of a rare supporting-like lineage in the developing mouse gonad 96%
Similar papers in this journal
- INO80 regulates chromatin accessibility to facilitate suppression of sex-linked gene expression during mouse spermatogenesis 97%
- Single cell RNA-sequencing reveals no evidence for meiotic sex chromosome inactivation in the threespine stickleback fish 96%
- KCTD19 associates with ZFP541 and HDAC1 and is required for meiotic exit in male mice 96%
Similar papers in this journal
Similar papers in this journal
- TAF4b transcription networks regulating early oocyte differentiation 93%
- MicroRNA-202 prevents precocious spermatogonial differentiation and meiotic initiation during mouse spermatogenesis 93%
- Epidermal cell fusion promotes the transition from an embryonic to a larval transcriptome in C. elegans 93%
"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.