Abstract
Maternal RNAs are stored from minutes to decades in oocytes throughout meiosis I arrest in a transcriptionally quiescent state. Recent reports, however, propose a role for nascent transcription in arrested oocytes. Whether arrested oocytes launch nascent transcription in response to environmental or hormonal signals while maintaining the meiosis I arrest remains undetermined. We test this by integrating single-cell RNA sequencing, RNA velocity, and RNA fluorescence in situ hybridization on C. elegans meiosis I arrested oocytes. We identify transcripts that increase as the arrested meiosis I oocyte ages, but rule out extracellular signaling through ERK MAPK and nascent transcription as a mechanism for this increase. We report transcript acquisition from neighboring somatic cells as a mechanism of transcript increase during meiosis I arrest. These analyses provide a deeper view at single-cell resolution of the RNA landscape of a meiosis I arrested oocyte and as it prepares for oocyte maturation and fertilization.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 112544 |
Journal | Cell Reports |
Volume | 42 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 27 2023 |
Keywords
- C. elegans
- CP: Developmental biology
- CP: Molecular biology
- Maternal Transcripts
- Oocytes
- Single Cell Sequencing
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology