Nanos2 suppresses meiosis and promotes male germ cell differentiation
- Atsushi Suzuki1 and
- Yumiko Saga1,2,3,4
- 1 Department of Genetics, SOKENDAI, Mishima, Shizuoka 411-8540, Japan;
- 2 Division of Mammalian Development, National Institute of Genetics, Mishima 411-8540, Japan;
- 3 Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST), Japan Science and Technology Corporation, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0011, Japan
Abstract
In mouse fetal gonads, retinoic acid (RA) induces meiosis in the female germ cells, whereas the male germ cells never enter meiosis due to Cyp26b1-mediated RA metabolism. We show here that Nanos2 plays critical roles in the differentiation of male germ cells. We find that Nanos2 maintains the suppression of meiosis by preventing Stra8 expression, which is required for premeiotic DNA replication, after Cyp26b1 is decreased. We also demonstrate that Nanos2 activates a male-specific genetic program, which is supported by the inhibition of meiosis and the induction of male-type differentiation in female germ cells following the forced expression of Nanos2.
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Footnotes
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↵4 Corresponding author.
↵4 E-MAIL ysaga{at}lab.nig.ac.jp; FAX 055-981-6828.
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Supplemental material is available at http://www.genesdev.org.
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Article is online at http://www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.1612708
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- Received September 5, 2007.
- Accepted December 7, 2007.
- Copyright © 2008, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
