Project description:Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) enables the reprogramming of terminally differentiated somatic cells into a totipotent state, yet whether this process is governed by conserved mechanisms across mammalian species remains poorly understood. Here, we employed low input transcriptomics to profile global transcriptional dynamics during zygotic genome activation in SCNT embryos from five species: mouse, pig, cattle, goat, and sheep. Our analysis revealed distinct genome-wide expression patterns among these species, with 70.17% of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) being species-specific, while only 9.17% were shared DEGs. Functional annotation of the shared DEGs highlighted their enrichment in processes such as mRNA transcription, translation, and carbohydrate metabolism. Notably, we observed widespread pathway overactivation in SCNT embryos from cattle, mouse, and pig, whereas goat and sheep SCNT embryos exhibited broad suppression. Furthermore, weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) demonstrated that species-specific effects exerted a far greater influence on reprogramming outcomes than the method of embryo generation (Fertilization or SCNT). Through systematic identification of key transcription factors, signaling pathways, epigenetic markers, and alternative splicing events, we uncovered species-specific regulatory patterns underlying reprogramming. Additionally, genome browser analysis revealed regional chromosomal expression anomalies in GDF9 and BMP15 during reprogramming across species. Collectively, our findings provide critical insights into the divergent mechanisms of reprogramming in mammalian species and establish a robust theoretical foundation for future studies in this field.
Project description:Since the first cloned animal Dolly Sheep was successfully created by using somatic cell nuclear transfer(SCNT) technique. It has become an irreplaceable tool to understand nuclear reprogramming and totipotency and holds huge potentials for regenerative medicine. However, extremely poor development rate of SCNT embryos indicates it is still questionable. The nature of reprogramming oocyte factors and their mechanism of action remain largely unknown.It is evident that the major barrier that hinders the developing iSCNT embryo mainly appears at the time of embryonic genome activation (EGA), which primarily occurs at the eight-cell stage in mammalian. The interspecies somatic cell nuclear transfer (iSCNT) is desired model for nuclear reprogramming research and a powerful tool for discovering the master genome activation genes. In this study, a valuable transcriptome recourse of iSCNT embryos was established, which derived from more than 2000 clone embryos of four different inter-family donor cells. Based on weighted gene co-expression network (WGCNA) approach, we provide an extensive transcriptome analysis of differentially expressed genes(DEG) for iSCNT embryos. The total gene expression patterns of different iSCNT embryos were discussed. 26 cell-specific modules with were identified, and those module significance and GO enriched categories were analyzed. The regulatory pathways of reprogramming barriers were further enriched. As master genome trigger genes, the transcripts related to TFIID subunit, RNA polymerase and Mediator were incomplete activated in iSCNT embryos. This indicated that pioneer factors, present in the cytoplasm of the oocyte, were failed to bind the sequence target on the heterology nuclear genome. This genomic incompatibility between the nuclear donor cell and the cytoplast may be as a major contributing factor causes the developmental failure of iSCNT cloned embryos. This study demonstrates that the iSCNT embryos undergoes only partial or incomplete reprogramming at eight-cell stage in mammalian. Our results offered convincing evidence that the abnormal expression of key master pathways may be caused the embryo developmental block of cloning embryo. This work will contribute to a better understanding of the molecular interaction between nuclear–cytoplasmic interaction and provides insight into the molecular determinants of nuclear reprogramming, human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-based therapies and rescuing highly endangered species.
Project description:The extremely low efficiency of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) derivation using somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) limits potential application. Blastocyst formation from human SCNT embryos occurs at a low rate and with only some oocyte donors. We previously showed in mice that reduction of histone H3 lysine 9 trimethylation (H3K9me3) through ectopic expression of the H3K9me3 demethylase Kdm4d greatly improves SCNT embryo development. Here we show that overexpression of a related H3K9me3 demethylase KDM4A improves human SCNT, and that, as in mice, H3K9me3 in the human somatic cell genome is an SCNT reprogramming barrier. Overexpression of KDM4A significantly improves the blastocyst formation rate in human SCNT embryos by facilitating transcriptional reprogramming, allowing derivation of NTESCs from all oocyte donors tested using adult AMD patient somatic nuclei donors. This conserved mechanistic insight has potential applications for improving SCNT in a variety of contexts, including regenerative medicine. Here we perform RNA-seq based transcriptome profiling in human Donor (fibroblast cells), in vitro fertilized embryos at 8-cell stages (IVF_8Cell), somatic cell nuclear transfer embryos at 8-cell stages (SCNT_8Cell), SCNT assisted by KDM4A 8-cell embryos (SCNT_KDM4A_8Cell). Besides, we also perform RNA-seq in Control human ES cells (CTR_hES) and SCNT assisted by KDM4A derived human ES cells (NTK) with duplicates.Â
Project description:Mammalian oocytes can reprogram somatic cells into totipotent state, which allows animal cloning through somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). However, the great majority of SCNT embryos fail to develop to term due to poorly defined reprogramming defects. Here we demonstrate that histone H3 lysine 9 trimethylation (H3K9me3) in donor nuclei is a major epigenetic barrier that prevents efficient nuclear reprogramming in mouse oocytes. Comparative transcriptome analysis of early embryos revealed reprogramming resistant regions (RRRs) where transcriptional activation at 2-cell embryos is inhibited by SCNT compared to in vitro fertilization (IVF). RRRs significantly overlap with H3K9me3 enrichment in donor somatic cells. Importantly, removal of the H3K9me3 by ectopic expression of an H3K9me3 demethylase Kdm4d in recipient oocytes not only reactivates most RRRs, but also greatly improves development of SCNT embryos. Furthermore, the use of Suv39h1/2-depleted somatic nuclei as donors also greatly improves the development of SCNT embryos. Our study thus reveals H3K9me3 as an epigenetic barrier in SCNT-mediated reprogramming and provides a feasible method for improving mammalian cloning efficiency.
Project description:Reprogramming of the gamete into a developmentally competent embryo identity is a fundamental aspect of preimplantation development. One of the most important processes of this reprogramming is the transcriptional awakening during embryonic genome activation (EGA), which robustly occurs in fertilized embryos but is defective in most somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) embryos. However, little is known about the genome-wide underlying chromatin landscape during EGA in SCNT embryos and how it differs from a fertilized embryo. By profiling open chromatin genome-wide in both types of bovine embryos, we find that SCNT embryos fail to reprogram a subset of the EGA gene targets that are normally activated in fertilized embryos. Importantly, a small number of transcription factor (TF) motifs explain most chromatin regions that fail to open in SCNT embryos suggesting that over-expression of a limited number of TFs may provide more robust reprogramming. One such TF, the zygotically-expressed bovine gene DUXC which is a homologue of EGA factors DUX/DUX4 in mouse/human, is alone capable of activating ~84% of all EGA transcripts that fail to activate normally in SCNT embryos. Additionally, single-cell chromatin profiling revealed low intra-embryo heterogeneity but high inter-embryo heterogeneity in SCNT embryos and an uncoupling of cell division and open chromatin reprogramming during EGA. Surprisingly, our data also indicate that transcriptional defects may arise downstream of promoter chromatin opening in SCNT embryos, suggesting additional mechanistic insights into how and why transcription at EGA is dysregulated. We anticipate that our work will lead to altered SCNT protocols to increase the developmental competency of bovine SCNT embryos.