Normal formation of a vertebrate body plan and loss of tissue maintenance in the absence of ezh2.

ABSTRACT: Polycomb group (PcG) proteins are transcriptional repressors of numerous genes, many of which regulate cell cycle progression or developmental processes. We used zebrafish to study Enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (Ezh2), the PcG protein responsible for placing the transcriptional repressive H3K27me3 mark. We identified a nonsense mutant of ezh2 and generated maternal zygotic (MZ) ezh2 mutant embryos. In contrast to knockout mice for PcG proteins, MZezh2 mutant embryos gastrulate seemingly normal, but die around 2 days post fertilization displaying pleiotropic phenotypes. Expression analyses indicated that genes important for early development are not turned off properly, revealing a regulatory role for Ezh2 during zygotic gene expression. In addition, we suggest that Ezh2 regulates maternal mR

SUBMITTER: San B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4857124 | biostudies-literature | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature