Journal
GENESIS
Volume 46, Issue 12, Pages 768-774Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/dvg.20438
Keywords
X-chromosome inactivation; genomic imprinting; DNA methylation; oogenesis; mouse
Categories
Funding
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan
Ask authors/readers for more resources
In female mouse embryos, the paternal X chromosome (Xp) is preferentially inactivated during preimplantation development and trophoblast differentiation. This imprinted X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) is partly due to an activating imprint on the maternal X chromosome (Xm), which is set during oocyte growth. However, the nature of this imprint is unknown. DNA methylation is one candidate, and therefore we examined whether disruptions of the two de novo, DNA methyltransferases in growing oocytes affect imprinted XCI. We found that accumulation of histone H3 lysine-27 trimethylation, a hallmark of XCI, occurs normally on the Xp, and not on the Xm, in female blastocysts developed from the mutant oocytes. Furthermore, the allelic expression patterns of X-linked genes including Xist and Tsix were unchanged in preimplantation embryos and also in the trophoblast. These results show that a maternal disruption of the DNA methyltransferases has no effect on imprinted XCI and argue that de novo DNA methylation is dispensable for Xm imprinting. This underscores the difference between imprinted XCI and autosomal imprinting. genesis 46:768-774, 2008. (C) 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available