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Distinctive chromatin in human sperm packages genes for embryo development

Open access
Hammoud, Saher Sue, Nix, David A., Zhang, Haiying, Purwar, Jahnvi, Carrell, Douglas T., Cairns, Bradley R.·2009·Nature

Abstract

Because nucleosomes are widely replaced by protamine in mature human sperm, the epigenetic contributions of sperm chromatin to embryo development have been considered highly limited. Here we show that the retained nucleosomes are significantly enriched at loci of developmental importance, including imprinted gene clusters, microRNA clusters, HOX gene clusters, and the promoters of stand-alone developmental transcription and signalling factors. Notably, histone modifications localize to particular developmental loci. Dimethylated lysine 4 on histone H3 (H3K4me2) is enriched at certain developmental promoters, whereas large blocks of H3K4me3 localize to a subset of developmental promoters, regions in HOX clusters, certain noncoding RNAs, and generally to paternally expressed imprinted loci, but not paternally repressed loci. Notably, trimethylated H3K27 (H3K27me3) is significantly enriched at developmental promoters that are repressed in early embryos, including many bivalent (H3K4me3/H3K27me3) promoters in embryonic stem cells. Furthermore, developmental promoters are generally DNA hypomethylated in sperm, but acquire methylation during differentiation. Taken together, epigenetic marking in sperm is extensive, and correlated with developmental regulators.

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Metadata

Authors
Hammoud, S. S., Nix, D. A., Zhang, H., Purwar, J., Carrell, D. T., & Cairns, B. R.
Venue
Nature
Published
2009-06-14
Volume
460
Issue
7254
Pages
473-478
ISSN
  • 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-4687
OpenAlex
W2037818631
Cited by
1,320
References
5
FWCI
33.85
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Distinctive chromatin in human sperm packages genes for embryo development. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1038/nature08162
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Hammoud, S. S., Nix, D. A., Zhang, H., Purwar, J., Carrell, D. T., & Cairns, B. R. (2009). Distinctive chromatin in human sperm packages genes for embryo development. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08162

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