Two new studies have been published by the Surani lab.
The first, led by Wolfram Gruhn, has discovered that epigenetic resetting in the human germline is associated with profound changes in repressive histone modifications. Gruhn et al. find that the loss of repressive epigenetic information in the early human germline extends to major repressive histone modifications. Consequently, efficient maintenance of a heterochromatic state is limited to a subset of loci, including some developmental genes and evolutionarily young transposable elements. Notably, reducing the repressive chromatin state in a substantial portion of the genome could promote a purifying selection against hPGCs harbouring aberrantly active transposable elements. Read the paper in Science Advances2023 Jan Epigenetic resetting in the human germ line entails histone modification remodeling
The second study, led by João Pedro Alves-Lopes, re-defined the spectrum of human primordial germ cell-like cell precursors in vitro. The authors showed that primordial germ cell-like cells specified from precursors transitioning between primed and naïve pluripotency harbour an enhanced progression capability, which was supported by human hindgut organoids. Read the paper in Cell Reports 42, 1. Published online January 5, 2023. Specification of human germ cell fate with enhanced progression capability supported by hindgut organoids.