Fig. 1

Deletion of Eed significantly reduced H3K27me3 in growing oocytes: a Schematic of the study aims—germ cells commit to female development after E12.5 and new epigenetic information is established in growing oocytes after birth. H3K27me3 is enriched as oocytes grow, with strong enrichment in the maturing oocyte. Using an Eedfl-Zp3Cre mouse model, we investigated the impacts of deleting Eed in the growing oocyte on offspring weight and growth. As EED deletion occurs only in growing oocytes, this model allows the study of EED-dependent maternal programming without contributions from confounding factors such as in utero environment. b Representative confocal images of immunofluorescence in ovary sections from adult Eed^fl/fl and Eed^fl/fl;Zp3-Cre female mice producing Eed^fl/fl (wild type; wt) and Eed^del/del (homozygous; hom) oocytes, respectively. Merged channels: H3K27me3 (red) and DAPI (DNA; blue). Eed^fl/fl (wt) and Eed^del/del(hom) oocytes are shown within the white dashed line. Images are representative of four biological replicates. 10-μm scale bars. c Average litter sizes from mothers producing Eed^fl/fl (wt), Eed^wt/del (heterozygous; het) and Eed^del/del (hom) growing oocytes: n = 15, 20 and 13 litters per genotype, respectively, and 7 different mothers per genotype group. ****P < 0.0001. One-way ANOVA plus post hoc Tukey’s multiple comparisons test. Error bars ± SEM