TBP Dynamics during Mouse Oocyte Meiotic Maturation and Early Embryo Development

To maintain cell lineage, cells develop a mechanism which can transmit the gene activity information to the daughter cells. In mitosis, TBP (TATA-binding protein), a transcription factor which belongs to TFIID was associated with M phase chromosomes and was proved to be a bookmark for cellular memory. Although previous work showed that TBP was dispensable for mouse oocyte maturation and early embryo development, exogenous TBP protein was detected in the nuclear of oocytes and early embryos. It is still unknown whether exogenous TBP can associate with condensed chromosomes during meiosis and mouse early embryo development. In present study by the injection of GFP-tagged TBP mRNA we for the first time investigated TBP dynamics in mouse early embryos and confirmed its localization pattern in oocytes. The exogenous TBP enriched at germinal vesicle at GV stage but disappeared from the chromosomes after GVBD. Moreover, exogenous TBP was still dispersed from the chromosomes of somatic donor nuclear in oocytes by nuclear transfer (NT), further proving that oocyte has some mechanism to remove TBP. During mouse embryo development, the exogenous TBP was removed from the chromosomes of M phase zygotes, but was found to express weakly at the M phase of 2-cell. Moreover, in the blastocyst TBP was also detected at the M phase chromosomes. Overexpression of TBP caused the failure of oocyte maturation and embryo development. Our results supported the idea that TBP might be a marker for transmitting cellular memory to daughter cells.