2025-06-24 スイス連邦工科大学ローザンヌ校(EPFL)
<関連情報>
- https://actu.epfl.ch/news/new-genes-old-job-the-cell-cycle-evolves/
- https://www.cell.com/cell-genomics/fulltext/S2666-979X(25)00179-X
ヒトの細胞周期制御には進化的に最近の転写因子が関与している Evolutionarily recent transcription factors partake in human cell cycle regulation
Cyril Pulver ∙ Romain Forey ∙ Alex R. Lederer ∙ … ∙ Alexandre Coudray ∙ Arianna Dorschel ∙ Didier Trono
Cell Genomics Published:June 23, 2025
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xgen.2025.100923
Graphical abstract
Highlights
•Evolutionarily recent transcription factors target cell-cycle-regulated genes
•Silencing evolutionarily recent transcription factors causes cell cycle imbalances
•ZNF519 exerts a primate-specific layer of cell cycle regulation
•ZNF274 is a mammalian-specific controller of replication timing
Summary
The cell cycle is a fundamental process in eukaryotic biology and is accordingly controlled by a highly conserved core signaling cascade. However, whether recently evolved proteins also influence this process is unclear. Here, we systematically map the influence of evolutionarily recent transcription factors (TFs) on human cell cycle progression. We find that the genomic targets of select young TFs, many of which belong to the rapidly evolving Krüppel-associated box zinc-finger protein (KZFP) family, exhibit synchronized cell cycle expression. Systematic perturbation studies reveal that silencing recent TFs disrupts normal cell cycle progression, which we experimentally confirm for ZNF519, a simian-restricted KZFP. Furthermore, we show that the therian-specific KZFP ZNF274 sets the cell cycle expression and replication timing of hundreds of clustered genes, many of which are KZFPs. These findings highlight an underappreciated level of lineage specificity in cell cycle regulation.
