Exploring the versatility of zygotic genome regulators: A comparative and functional analysis
Ankita Sharma,
Greg Jude Dsilva,
Girish Deshpande,
Sanjeev Galande
Affiliations
Ankita Sharma
Department of Biology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Dr Homi Bhabha Road, Pune 411008, India; Center of Excellence in Epigenetics, Department of Life Sciences, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Delhi-NCR 201314, India
Greg Jude Dsilva
Department of Biology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Dr Homi Bhabha Road, Pune 411008, India; Center of Excellence in Epigenetics, Department of Life Sciences, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Delhi-NCR 201314, India
Girish Deshpande
Department of Biology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Dr Homi Bhabha Road, Pune 411008, India; Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA; Corresponding author
Sanjeev Galande
Department of Biology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Dr Homi Bhabha Road, Pune 411008, India; Center of Excellence in Epigenetics, Department of Life Sciences, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Delhi-NCR 201314, India; Corresponding author
Summary: The activation of the zygotic genome constitutes an essential process during early embryogenesis that determines the overall progression of embryonic development. Zygotic genome activation (ZGA) is tightly regulated, involving a delicate interplay of activators and repressors, to precisely control the timing and spatial pattern of gene expression. While regulators of ZGA vary across species, they accomplish comparable outcomes. Recent studies have shed light on the unanticipated roles of ZGA components both during and after ZGA. Moreover, different ZGA regulators seem to have acquired unique functional modalities to manifest their regulatory potential. In this review, we explore these observations to assess whether these are simply anecdotal or contribute to a broader regulatory framework that employs a versatile means to arrive at the conserved outcome.
