Reproduction Abstracts

After fertilization, differentiated oocytes become totipotent embryos. In this transition, a drastic change in chromatin structure is known to occur, although the mechanism underlying this change remains to be elucidated. Recent studies have revealed that one of the major factors that contribute to the change in the chromatin structure is the exchange of histones with their variants. In mammals, there are three main non-centromeric histone H3 variants: H3.1, H3.2, and H3.3. Us...