{"doi":"10.1101/2021.03.24.436683","title":"A species-specific retrotransposon drives a conserved <i>Cdk2ap1</i> isoform essential for preimplantation development","abstract":"Abstract Retrotransposons mediate gene regulation in multiple developmental and pathological processes. Here, we characterized the transient retrotransposon induction in preimplantation development of eight mammalian species. While species-specific in sequences, induced retrotransposons exhibit a similar preimplantation profile, conferring gene regulatory activities particularly through LTR retrotransposon promoters. We investigated a mouse-specific MT2B2 retrotransposon promoter, which generates an N-terminally truncated, preimplantation-specific Cdk2ap1 ΔN isoform to promote cell proliferation. Cdk2ap1 ΔN functionally contrasts to the canonical Cdk2ap1 , which represses cell proliferation and peaks in mid-gestation stage. The mouse-specific MT2B2 element is developmentally essential, as its deletion abolishes Cdk2ap1 ΔN , reduces cell proliferation and impairs embryo implantation. Intriguingly, Cdk2ap1 Δ N is evolutionarily conserved across mammals, driven by species-specific promoters. The distinct preimplantation Cdk2ap1 Δ N expression across different mammalian species correlates with their different duration in preimplantation development. Hence, species-specific transposon promoters can yield evolutionarily conserved, alternative protein isoforms, bestowing them with new functions and species-specific expression to govern essential biological divergence. One Sentence Summary In mammalian preimplantation embryos, retrotransposon promoters generate conserved gene isoforms, confer species-specific expression, and perform essential developmental functions.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2021,"id":216456,"datarank":0.24141568686511508,"base_score":1.6094379124341003,"endowment":1.6094379124341003,"self_citation_contribution":0.24141568686511508,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.24141568686511508,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":4,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9547,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":550898,"name":"Wanqing Shao","orcid":"0000-0003-4234-2095","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":632254,"name":"Jingqi Chen","orcid":"0000-0002-2454-0058","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":633501,"name":"Angus Lee","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":632255,"name":"Xin Qi","orcid":"0000-0003-4066-8710","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":632256,"name":"Mackenzie Noon","orcid":"0000-0002-7531-5280","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":632257,"name":"Kristy Tjokro","orcid":"0009-0007-3087-0858","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":632258,"name":"Gabriele Sales","orcid":"0000-0003-2078-5661","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":361126,"name":"Anne Biton","orcid":"0000-0002-3814-4195","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1858,"name":"Terence P. Speed","orcid":"0000-0002-5403-7998","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":33865,"name":"Zhenyu Xuan","orcid":"0000-0001-9344-8493","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":24564,"name":"Ting Wang","orcid":"0000-0002-6800-242X","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":58989,"name":"Davide Risso","orcid":"0000-0001-8508-5012","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":499463,"name":"Lin He","orcid":"0000-0001-5928-1263","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":499461,"name":"A Modzelewski","orcid":"0000-0003-0698-957X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":97,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:53:11.245932Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}