As the breeding of heterozygotes yielded a Mendelian frequency of Mov10l1 –/– progeny (Supplementary Table 4), this implied a maternal effect phenotype whereby Mov10l1 –/– oocytes retain meiotic competence but lack the ability to support development irrespective of the genotype of the zygote.

cDNA was amplified by ExTaqHS (TaKaRa) using the following program: 94 °C for 2 min; 35 cycles of 94 °C for 10 s, 60 °C for 30 s and 72 °C for 30 s; and a final extension at 72 °C for 3 min. Pre-pachytene piRNAs were broadly dispersed at a relatively low density in intergenic and genic regions, while most pachytene piRNAs mapped to ~100 loci, many of which were syntenic with mouse, cow and human testicular piRNA loci. The χ 2 test from base R was used for analysis of the Mendelian distribution of genotypes after crossing heterozygotes and for comparison of germ cell numbers in seminiferous tubules. The number of replicates was influenced by the limited availability of the biological material stemming from time-consuming and laborious hamster breeding.The most relevant non-LTR retrotransposon is the long interspersed nuclear element L1, the most successful autonomous transposable element invading mammalian genomes 32. Histological analysis of old Mov10l1 –/– males (>50 weeks) revealed aspermatogenic seminiferous tubules (Fig. b, Composition of an 18–32-nucleotide segment of RNA-seq libraries from fully grown Mov10l1 +/+ and Mov10l1 –/– oocytes.

Genes were considered to be significantly upregulated or downregulated if their corresponding adjusted P values were smaller than 0. The spindle length, spindle volume (tubulin staining signal) and metaphase plate volume (DAPI signal) of MII eggs (isolated 17 h after hCG injection) were quantified using three-dimensional spindle reconstruction from confocal optical sections. In the liver, radioactivity, expressed as percentage of total radioactivity per organ, amounted to 0. Based on immunoelectrophoresis and/or ELISA, the antibody reacts with whole molecule syrian hamster IgG.Downloads from external full-text sources linked to from within the ACM bibliographic space are not counted as 'available for download'. The massive loss of germ cells before the spermatogonia form differs from the phenotypes in mice with mutations in the piRNA pathway, which occur after the spermatogonia form.