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A new study compares DNA methylation profiles in developing zebrafish, Xenopus tropicalis and mice and suggests roles for Tet proteins in demethylating conserved gene enhancers during the phylotypic period of early development. These findings provide an epigenetic underpinning for the 'hourglass' model.
Figure 1: Depiction of the hourglass model of early development and its molecular underpinning. At the bottleneck, termed the phylotypic period, vertebrate embryos display the least phenotypic variability. The work of BogdanoviÄ et al. in this issue suggests a major role for Tet family proteins in the demethylation of enhancers that drive the expression of genes involved in body plan determination.
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