Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2017 Jun;74(11):1957-1967.
doi: 10.1007/s00018-016-2447-z. Epub 2017 Jan 3.

Epigenetic modifications and reprogramming in paternal pronucleus: sperm, preimplantation embryo, and beyond

Yuki Okada  1 , Kosuke Yamaguchi  2   3
Affiliations
Review

Epigenetic modifications and reprogramming in paternal pronucleus: sperm, preimplantation embryo, and beyond

Yuki Okada et al. Cell Mol Life Sci. 2017 Jun.

Abstract

Pronuclear/zygotic stage is the very first stage of life. In this period, paternal pronucleus undergoes massive chromatin remodeling called "paternal reprogramming" including protamine-histone replacement and subsequent acquisition of epigenetic modifications. Although these consecutive events are required for the initiation of maternal-zygotic transition, the precise role of paternal reprogramming and its effect on subsequent embryonic development has been largely unknown to date. Recently, various new techniques, especially next-generation sequencing (NGS) and RNAi microinjection contribute to unveil the epigenetic transition from both paternal and maternal to early preimplantation embryos, suggesting not only the simple transcriptional regulation by transcription factors but also dynamic structural alteration of chromatin to initiate the wave of zygotic gene transcription. This review summarizes such recent progress for understanding the epigenetic transition in sperm and preimplantation embryos, and further argue about its transgenerational effect.

Keywords: Epigenetic modification; Fertilization; Histone; Preimplantation development; Pronucleus; Protamine; Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance; Zygotic gene activation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Schematic depiction of “paternal reprogramming”. After fertilization, paternal pronucleus undergoes massive chromatin remodeling including protamine removal, acquisition of new histones and their modifications, and DNA demethylation. These events subsequently trigger minor ZGA. Reference numbers are indicated
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Schematic depiction of “paternal transgenerational effect”. During spermiogenesis, sperm histones are replaced by PRMs, while 1–15% of histones are still retained in sperm chromatin. A current question is whether these histones are retained in sperm genome, and whether they have substantial roles in the next generation. Other than histones, DNA methylation and non-coding RNAs are possibly transmitted from sperm to offspring, and their involvement in the next generations are also suggested. Reference numbers are indicated
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Ohsumi K, Katagiri C. Characterization of the ooplasmic factor inducing decondensation of and protamine removal from toad sperm nuclei: involvement of nucleoplasmin. Dev Biol. 1991;148(1):295–305. doi: 10.1016/0012-1606(91)90338-4. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Inoue A, Ogushi S, Saitou M, Suzuki MG, Aoki F. Involvement of mouse nucleoplasmin 2 in the decondensation of sperm chromatin after fertilization. Biol Reprod. 2011;85(1):70–77. doi: 10.1095/biolreprod.110.089342. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Kimura Y, Yanagimachi R. Mouse oocytes injected with testicular spermatozoa or round spermatids can develop into normal offspring. Development. 1995;121(8):2397–2405. - PubMed
    1. Kurotaki YK, Hatanaka Y, Kamimura S, Oikawa M, Inoue H, Ogonuki N, Inoue K, Ogura A. Impaired active DNA demethylation in zygotes generated by round spermatid injection. Hum Reprod. 2015;30(5):1178–1187. doi: 10.1093/humrep/dev039. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Teperek M, Simeone A, Gaggioli V, Miyamoto K, Allen GE, Erkek S, Kwon T, Marcotte EM, Zegerman P, Bradshaw CR, Peters AH, Gurdon JB, Jullien J. Sperm is epigenetically programmed to regulate gene transcription in embryos. Genome Res. 2016;26(8):1034–1046. doi: 10.1101/gr.201541.115. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources

  NODES
twitter 2