Early genome activation in Drosophila is extensive with an initial tendency for aborted transcripts and retained introns
Name
Genome Res.-2019-Kwasnieski-1188-97.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
4.42 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
51fbed56ff00aaad8088f94c6b031747
Author(s)
Kwasnieski, Jamie C.
Orr-Weaver, Terry
Bartel, David
Date Issued
June 2019
Journal
Genome Research
Publisher
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Citation
Kwasnieski, Jamie C. et al. "Early genome activation in Drosophila is extensive with an initial tendency for aborted transcripts and retained introns." Genome Research 29, 7 (June 2019): 1188-1197 © 2019 The Authors
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Control of metazoan embryogenesis shifts from maternal to zygotic gene products as the zygotic genome becomes transcriptionally activated. In Drosophila, zygotic genome activation (ZGA) has been thought to occur in two phases, starting with a minor wave, in which a small number of genes become expressed, and progressing to the major wave, in which many more genes are activated. However, technical challenges have hampered the identification of early transcripts or obscured the onset of their transcription. Here, we develop an approach to isolate transcribed mRNAs and apply it over the course of Drosophila early genome activation. Our results increase by 10-fold the genes reported to be activated during what has been thought of as the minor wave and show that early genome activation is continuous and gradual. Transposable-element mRNAs are also produced, but discontinuously. Genes transcribed in the early and middle part of ZGA are short with few if any introns, and their transcripts are frequently aborted and tend to have retained introns, suggesting that inefficient splicing as well as rapid cell divisions constrain the lengths of early transcripts.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1101/gr.242164.118
