Publications by authors named "Ivana Dockal"
Article Synopsis
- Cryptorchidism is a common congenital condition in newborn males where one or both testes fail to descend into the scrotum, leading to potential infertility due to azoospermia.
- Research using a mouse model of surgically induced cryptorchidism revealed changes in the epigenetic markers H3K27me3 and H3K9me3 in spermatogonial cells, with a specific loss of H3K27me3 linked to gene activation related to development and apoptosis.
- The study indicates that elevated temperatures may enhance the activity of enzymes that demethylate H3K27, contributing to mRNA dysregulation and potentially impacting spermatogonial function.
Male infertility can be caused by chromosomal abnormalities, mutations and epigenetic defects. Epigenetic modifiers pre-program hundreds of spermatogenic genes in spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) for expression later in spermatids, but it remains mostly unclear whether and how those genes are involved in fertility. Here, we report that Wfdc15a, a WFDC family protease inhibitor pre-programmed by KMT2B, is essential for spermatogenesis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDuring spermatogenesis, intricate gene expression is coordinately regulated by epigenetic modifiers, which are required for differentiation of spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) contained among undifferentiated spermatogonia. We have previously found that KMT2B conveys H3K4me3 at bivalent and monovalent promoters in undifferentiated spermatogonia. Because these genes are expressed late in spermatogenesis or during embryogenesis, we expect that many of them are potentially programmed by KMT2B for future expression.
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