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Poised for development

A new study tracks the distribution of bivalent H3K4me3/H3K27me3 chromatin in male germ cells of six vertebrate species. The results have big implications for understanding the mechanisms that specify animal development.

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Figure 1: Core poised genes, marked by H3K4me3 and H3K27me3 (indicated here by mock ChIP-seq reads), arose before the amniote common ancestor in many cases and often correspond to genes responsible for ancient regulation of somatic development.

Marina Coral Spence/Nature Publishing Group

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Correspondence to Charles G Danko.

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Choate, L., Danko, C. Poised for development. Nat Genet 48, 822–823 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.3628

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.3628

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