Cellular transitions occur at all stages of organismal life from conception to adult
regeneration. Changing cellular state involves three main features: activating gene …

In mammals, maternal-to-zygotic transition (MZT), or oocyte-to-embryo transition, begins with
oocyte meiotic resumption due to the sequential translational activation and destabilization …

The development of animal embryos is initially directed by maternal gene products. Then,
during the maternal-to-zygotic transition (MZT), developmental control is handed to the …

All animal embryos pass through a stage during which developmental control is handed
from maternally provided gene products to those synthesized from the zygotic genome. This …

Embryogenesis depends on a highly coordinated cascade of genetically encoded events. In
animals, maternal factors contributed by the egg cytoplasm initially control development …

Following fertilization, embryos develop for a substantial amount of time with a
transcriptionally silent genome. Thus, early development is maternally programmed, as it …

In mouse, the oocyte-to-embryo transition entails converting a highly differentiated oocyte to
totipotent blastomeres. This transition is driven by degradation of maternal mRNAs, which …

In somatic cells, RNA polymerase II (Pol II) transcription initiation starts by the binding of the
general transcription factor TFIID, containing the TATA-binding protein (TBP) and 13 TBP …

A remarkable epigenetic remodelling process occurs shortly after fertilization, which restores
totipotency to the zygote. This involves global DNA demethylation, chromatin remodelling …

Most sexually reproducing metazoans are anisogamous, meaning that the two gametes that
combine during fertilization differ greatly in size. By convention, the larger gametes are …