Zygotic activation of transposable elements during zebrafish early embryogenesis.

ABSTRACT: Although previous studies have shown that transposable elements (TEs) are conservatively activated to play key roles during early embryonic development, the details of zygotic TE activation (ZTA) remain poorly understood. Here, we employ long-read sequencing to precisely identify that only a small subset of TE loci are activated among numerous copies, allowing us to map their hierarchical transcriptional cascades at the single-locus and single-transcript level. Despite the heterogeneity of ZTA across family, subfamily, locus, and transcript levels, our findings reveal that ZTA follows a markedly different pattern from conventional zygotic gene activation (ZGA): ZTA occurs significantly later than ZGA and shows a pronounced bias for nuclear localization of TE transcripts. This study advance

SUBMITTER: Li B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12006353 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature