Project description:The exogenous expression of master transcription factors (TFs) is a powerful and exciting approach to convert cellular identity. Yet, the generation of desired cell types is often plagued by inefficiency, slow kinetics and inability to produce mature cell types. Through investigations of the molecular mechanisms of induced plurpipotent stem cell generation, we discovered that expression of constitutively active Smad2/3 (Smad2CA/3CA), together with the Yamanaka factors, could dramatically improve the efficiency and kinetics of reprogramming. Mechanistically, SMAD3 interacted with both co-activators and reprogramming factors, bridging their interaction during reprogramming. Fascinatingly, SMAD2/3 interact with a multitude of master TFs in different cell types, and conversions of B cells to macrophages, myoblasts to adipocytes, and human fibroblasts to neurons were also markedly enhanced when their master TFs were co-expressed with Smad3CA. These results revealed the existence of shared molecular mechanisms underlying diverse TF-mediated cellular conversions, and demonstrated SMAD2/3 as a widely applicable booster.
Project description:Introgressed variants from other species can be an important source of genetic variation because they may arise rapidly, can include multiple mutations on a single haplotype, and have often been pretested by selection in the species of origin. Although introgressed alleles are generally deleterious, several studies have reported introgression as the source of adaptive alleles-including the rodenticide-resistant variant of Vkorc1 that introgressed from Mus spretus into European populations of Mus musculus domesticus. Here, we conducted bidirectional genome scans to characterize introgressed regions into one wild population of M. spretus from Spain and three wild populations of M. m. domesticus from France, Germany, and Iran. Despite the fact that these species show considerable intrinsic postzygotic reproductive isolation, introgression was observed in all individuals, including in the M. musculus reference genome (GRCm38). Mus spretus individuals had a greater proportion of introgression compared with M. m. domesticus, and within M. m. domesticus, the proportion of introgression decreased with geographic distance from the area of sympatry. Introgression was observed on all autosomes for both species, but not on the X-chromosome in M. m. domesticus, consistent with known X-linked hybrid sterility and inviability genes that have been mapped to the M. spretus X-chromosome. Tract lengths were generally short with a few outliers of up to 2.7 Mb. Interestingly, the longest introgressed tracts were in olfactory receptor regions, and introgressed tracts were significantly enriched for olfactory receptor genes in both species, suggesting that introgression may be a source of functional novelty even between species with high barriers to gene flow.