Dr. Chanchao and colleagues have recently published a research article in Science, one of the world’s top scientific journals (impact factor of 31.0), to further demonstrate the role of TRIM28, a protein normally present in the mother’s egg that is essential to preserve epigenetic marks on a specific set of genes, in mammalian development. Together with her colleagues, they introduced an advance methodology probing single cells for various DNA-methylation errors at multiple loci, to reveal failed maintenance of epigenetic mark results in TRIM28 deficient mice, which display unpredictable phenotypes leading to developmental arrest. Dr.Chanchao demonstrated that mouse pronuclear transfer can be used to ameliorate such reprogramming defects. This study not only details the epigenetic reprogramming dynamics in early mammalian embryos but also suggests diagnostic and potential future therapeutic applications.
