Totipotency in the absence of CAF-I: unhindered choices when the chaperone is out

Embryonal totipotent cells can produce both embryonic and extraembryonic tissues and can generate whole organisms. In mice this level of genome plasticity is preserved in the 2-cell embryos, but is absent in embryonic cells from later stages of development. Recently it has been demonstrated that totipotent-like cells spontaneously appear in embryonic stem cell cultures and that the depletion of the histone chaperone Chromatin Assembly Factor I (CAF-I) increases the abundance of 2cell-like cells. On the other hand, earlier studies have demonstrated that CAF-I is necessary for epigenetic conversions at the telomeres of S. cerevisiae. This commentary proposes that the absence of CAF-I confers totipotency of embryonic cells and that its activation triggers chromatin changes that reset the epigenome toward cell differentiation.