Proteome landscape of mouse primordial germ cells

Primordial germ cells (PGCs) are precursors of both male and female gametes as fundamental materials for organism development. The transcriptome, methylome and chromatin accessibility profiles of PGCs in both mice and humans have been recently reported. However, little is known about the characteristics of PGCs at the protein levels, which directly exert cellular functions. Here, we construct landscapes of both proteome of mouse PGCs at E11.5, E13.5 and E16.5 days, the three critical developmental windows for PGCs’ sex differentiation, female meiosis initiation and male mitotic arrest. In each developmental stage of PGCs nearly 2000-3000 proteins are identified, among which specific functional pathways such as oxidative phosphorylation, DNA damage repair, and meiotic cell cycle are involved for different events during PGCs development. Thus, our work offers a valuable resource for the systematic investigations of PGC development at protein level.