title: Parental contributions to the transcriptome of early plant embryos.
abstract: In plants and animals, embryo development becomes ultimately controlled by zygotic genes, but the timing of zygotic genome activation (ZGA) varies greatly between organisms. We recently showed that the transcriptome of young Arabidopsis embryos is dominated by maternal transcripts with a progressive ZGA under the maternal control of epigenetic pathways. In contrast, another study reported that both parental genomes contribute equally to the transcriptome of young embryos, suggesting that ZGA occurs immediately after fertilization. How to explain such dramatic differences? We propose that the discrepancies between these two studies likely reflect genuine biological differences between the two experiments, paving the road towards exciting discoveries on ZGA mechanisms in plants.
authors: Institute of Plant Biology & Zürich-Basel Plant Science Center, University of Zürich, Zollikerstrasse 107, CH-8008 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors: Célia
authors: C
authors: Baroux
authors: Daphné
authors: D
authors: Autran
authors: Michael T
authors: MT
authors: Raissig
authors: Daniel
authors: D
authors: Grimanelli
authors: Ueli
authors: U
authors: Grossniklaus
mesh_terms: D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics*; D057890:Epigenomics; D005306:Fertilization / Q000235:genetics; D018745:Genome, Plant; D012639:Seeds / Q000235:genetics*; D059467:Transcriptome