As revealed by gene co-expression network analysis, human and mouse PGCs shared a core transcriptome consisting of key germ cell genes (e.g., BLIMP1, TFAP2C, UTF1, DAZL, and DDX4), as well as pluripotency genes (e.g., OCT4, NANOG, PRDM14, and LIN28A).
In this paper, the authors describe global DNA methylation dynamics in mouse PGCs featuring DNA methylation-resistant genomic regions, including IAPs, ERV1 and ERVK families.
Mouse PGCs can be propagated in vitro for short periods before undergoing apoptosis [55].
Interestingly, the methylation level of SINE in the female mouse PGCs is lower than that in male PGCs.
Notably, BLIMP1 (expressed from 6.5-dpc mouse PGCs) was concomitantly upregulated, whereas STELLA expression (expressed from 7.5-dpc mouse PGCs) was not significantly altered.
Thus, human and mouse PGCs demonstrate distinct H3K9me2 and H3K27me3 dynamics.
A transient cessation of transcription elongation has also been observed in mouse PGCs [ 12].
Furthermore, cKIT+ human PGCs have been shown to undergo whole-genome epigenetic reprogramming similar to mouse PGCs, indicating that common epigenetic modifications take place during PGC development in both species (Gkountela et al, 2013).
This difference in experimental results could be attributed to the increased proliferation of chicken PGCs under our culture conditions in comparison to mouse PGC cultures.
Mouse PGC-1α adenovirus (Ad-PGC-1α) and Lacz were constructed and purchased from Sunbio Medical Biotechnology.
