Hsin-Yi Huang's research while affiliated with Hubrecht Institute and other places

... Preformation prevails in fish, amphibians and other oviparous animals 14 . Maternally inherited germplasm factors, such as vasa 15 , dazl 16 , piwil1 17 , dnd1 18 , nanos3 19 , and tdrd 20,21 , are deposited in presumptive primordial germ cells (pPGCs), leading them to segregate from the somatic lineage and eventually form PGCs. At present, the induction of PGC-like cells from embryonic stem cells or pluripotent stem cells has been successfully achieved in mice 22,23 , rats 6 and northern white rhinoceros 24 , and the induced PGCs (iPGCs) can be further differentiated into functional gametes after transplantation into germ cell-deficient host animals 6,[22][23][24] . However, these induction strategies are all based on the epigenesis model, and there are no successful reports of PGC induction using the preformation model in oviparous species. ...

... Germ granules are localized perinuclearly and contain the PIWI interacting RNAs (piRNA) pathway machinery [5], which protects germline nuclei from retrotransposons by processing and cleaving their transcripts [4][5][6][7][8]. Germ granules in most animals [5,7], including zebrafish [9,10], associate with clustered mitochondria and were collectively referred to as nuage. Zebrafish germ granules was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. ...