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Heritable Sperm Chromatin Epigenetics: A Break To Remember, Ralph G. Meyer, Chelsea C. Ketchum, Mirella L. Meyer-Ficca

UAES Publications

Sperm chromatin not only has a unique structure to condense and protect the paternal DNA in transit, but also provides epigenetic information that supports embryonic development. Most of the unique sperm nuclear architecture is formed during the sweeping postmeiotic chromatin remodeling events in spermiogenesis, where the majority of nucleosomes are removed and replaced by protamines. The remaining histones and other chromatin proteins are located in structurally and transcriptionally relevant positions in the genome and carry diverse post-translational modifications relevant to the control of embryonic gene expression. How such postmeiotic chromatin-based programming of sperm epigenetic information proceeds, and how susceptible the …