Hominoid-Specific Transposable Elements and KZFPs Facilitate Human Embryonic Genome Activation and Control Transcription in Naive Human ESCs (Cell Stem Cell)

Transposable elements (TEs) are key to the evolutionary turnover of regulatory sequences but potentially toxic to the host. Trono and colleagues demonstrate that KRAB zinc-finger proteins tame the activity of TEs during human early embryogenesis, thus allowing for their genome-wide incorporation into species-specific transcriptional networks.