Received: 25 June 2018 | Accepted: 17 August 2018 DOI: 10.1002/jcp.27386 ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE Dynamics changes in the transcription factors during early human embryonic development Rasoul Godini | Hossein Fallahi Department of Biology, School of Sciences, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran Correspondence Hossein Fallahi, Department of Biology, School of Sciences, Razi University, Baq‐e‐Abrisham, Kermanshah 6714414676, Iran. Email: h.fallahi@razi.ac.ir; Fallahi.hossein@gmail.com Abstract Development of an embryo from a single cell, zygote, to multicellular morulae requires activation of hundreds of genes that were mostly inactivated before fertilization. Inevitably, transcription factors (TFs) would be involved in modulating the drastic changes in gene expression pattern observed at all preimplantation stages. Despite many ongoing efforts to uncover the role of TFs at the early stages of embryogenesis, still many unanswered questions remained that need to be explored. This could be done by studying the expression pattern of multiple genes obtained by high‐throughput techniques. In the current study, we have identified a set of TFs that are involved in the progression of the zygote to blastocyst. Global gene expression patterns of consecutive stages were compared and differences documented. Expectedly, at the early stages of development, only a few sets of TFs differentially expressed while at the later stages hundreds of TFs appear to be upregulated. Interestingly, the expression levels of many TFs show an oscillation pattern during development indicating a need for their precise expression. A significant shift in gene expression was observed during the transition from four‐ to eight‐cell stages, an indication of zygote genome activation. Additionally, we have found 11 TFs that were common in all stages including ATF3, EN1, IFI16, IKZF3, KLF3, NPAS3, NR2F2, RUNX1, SOX2, ZBTB20, and ZSCAN4. However, their expression patterns did not follow similar trends in the steps studied. Besides, our findings showed that both upregulation and active downregulation of the TFs expression is required for successful embryogenesis. Furthermore, our detailed network analysis identified the hub TFs for each transition. We found that HNF4A, FOXA2, and EP300 are the three most important elements for the first division of zygote. KEYWORDS embryogenesis, hub genes, network analysis, two‐cell stage, zygote genome activation 1 | INTRODUCTION Molecular mechanism governing the embryos preimplantation stages might hold the key to successful assisted reproductive technology (Niakan, Han, Pedersen, Simon, & Pera, 2012). Early stages in mammalian embryos harbor transcriptional activities that are different from those observed in later stages of development. Shortly after fertilization, the genomes should be reactivated (both maternal and paternal genomes), a process that is known as zygote genome activation (ZGA; M. T. Lee, Bonneau, & Giraldez, 2014; Tadros & Lipshitz, 2009). The early stages of embryogenesis and proper activation of the genome is crucial for successful development. Previous studies have identified distinct, but overlapping gene expression dynamics during the first stages of embryonic J Cell Physiol. 2018;1–14. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jcp © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. | 1