Meiotic chromosome structure and segregation in mice
In collaboration with Takashi Akera’s group at NIH/NHLBI, we are using Oligopaints to investigate the role of Condensin II in shaping chromosomes and regulating pairing in mouse oocytes and somatic cells.
We are specifically interested in how increased or decreased levels of Condensin II impact prophase I/metaphase I bivalent structure and pairing stabilization in meiosis to determine if loss of Condensin II function over time might contribute to maternal age-related chromosome unpairing and missegregation.
Figures:Top: mouse metaphase I oocyte labeled with anti-tubulin antibody (yellow), DAPI (lavender), and Oligopaints labeling telomere-proximal chromain on chromosome 1 (cyan).
Right/bottom: mouse anaphase I oocyte labeled with DAPI (blue), tubulin (orange), Oligopaints universally labeling the middle of ch2 (cyan), and homolog-specific Oligopaints for one ch2 allele (red). Yellow arrowheads indicate ch2 homologs.
Images courtesy of Betsy Clark and Duilio Silva in the Akera lab at NHLBI.