scholarly journals The discovery and importance of genomic imprinting

eLife ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne C Ferguson-Smith ◽  
Deborah Bourchis
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Genomic Imprinting ◽  
Genetic Disorders ◽  
Epigenetic Inheritance ◽  
Specific Gene ◽  
Specific Gene Expression ◽  
Epigenetic Control ◽  
International Award ◽  
Parent Of Origin ◽  
Shed Light

The discovery of genomic imprinting by Davor Solter, Azim Surani and co-workers in the mid-1980s has provided a foundation for the study of epigenetic inheritance and the epigenetic control of gene activity and repression, especially during development. It also has shed light on a range of diseases, including both rare genetic disorders and common diseases. This article is being published to celebrate Solter and Surani receiving a 2018 Canada Gairdner International Award "for the discovery of mammalian genomic imprinting that causes parent-of-origin specific gene expression and its consequences for development and disease".

scholarly journals A Generalized Linear Model for Decomposing Cis-regulatory, Parent-of-Origin, and Maternal Effects on Allele-Specific Gene Expression

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. 2227-2234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasuaki Takada ◽  
Ryutaro Miyagi ◽  
Aya Takahashi ◽  
Toshinori Endo ◽  
Naoki Osada
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Maternal Effects ◽  
Genomic Imprinting ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Specific Gene ◽  
Rna Seq ◽  
Simple Method ◽  
Specific Gene Expression ◽  
Allele Specific ◽  
Parent Of Origin

Abstract Joint quantification of genetic and epigenetic effects on gene expression is important for understanding the establishment of complex gene regulation systems in living organisms. In particular, genomic imprinting and maternal effects play important roles in the developmental process of mammals and flowering plants. However, the influence of these effects on gene expression are difficult to quantify because they act simultaneously with cis-regulatory mutations. Here we propose a simple method to decompose cis-regulatory (i.e., allelic genotype), genomic imprinting [i.e., parent-of-origin (PO)], and maternal [i.e., maternal genotype (MG)] effects on allele-specific gene expression using RNA-seq data obtained from reciprocal crosses. We evaluated the efficiency of method using a simulated dataset and applied the method to whole-body Drosophila and mouse trophoblast stem cell (TSC) and liver RNA-seq data. Consistent with previous studies, we found little evidence of PO and MG effects in adult Drosophila samples. In contrast, we identified dozens and hundreds of mouse genes with significant PO and MG effects, respectively. Interestingly, a similar number of genes with significant PO effect were detect in mouse TSCs and livers, whereas more genes with significant MG effect were observed in livers. Further application of this method will clarify how these three effects influence gene expression levels in different tissues and developmental stages, and provide novel insight into the evolution of gene expression regulation.

scholarly journals Males that silence their father’s genes: genomic imprinting of a complete haploid genome

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrés G. de la Filia ◽  
Andrew J. Mongue ◽  
Jennifer Dorrens ◽  
Hannah Lemon ◽  
Dominik R. Laetsch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Genomic Imprinting ◽  
Mendelian Inheritance ◽  
Specific Gene ◽  
Paternal Genome ◽  
Genetic Conflict ◽  
Specific Gene Expression ◽  
Maternal Genome ◽  
Allele Specific ◽  
Parent Of Origin

AbstractGenetic conflict is considered a key driver in the evolution of new reproductive and sex determining systems. In particular, reproductive strategies with non-Mendelian inheritance, where parents do not contribute equally to the genetic makeup of their offspring. One of the most extraordinary examples of non-Mendelian inheritance is paternal genome elimination (PGE), a form of haplodiploidy which has evolved repeatedly across arthropods. Under PGE, males are diploid but only transmit maternally-inherited chromosomes to their offspring, while the paternal homologues are excluded from sperm. This asymmetric inheritance is thought to have evolved through an evolutionary arms race between paternal and maternal genomes over transmission to future generations. In several clades with PGE, such as the mealybugs (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae), paternal chromosomes are not just eliminated from sperm, but also heterochromatinised early in development and thought to remain inactive. Such paternal genome silencing could alleviate genetic conflict between paternal alleles over transmission. However, it is unclear if paternal chromosomes are indeed genetically inert in both soma and germline. Here, we present a parent-of-origin allele-specific transcriptome analysis in male mealybugs. We show that expression is globally biased towards the maternal genome, but detect activity of paternal chromosomes in both somatic and reproductive tissues. Up to 70% of somatically-expressed genes are to some degree paternally-expressed. However, paternal genome expression is much more restricted in the testis, with only 20% of genes showing paternal contribution. Finally, we show that the patterns of parent-of-origin-specific gene expression are remarkably similar across genotypes and that those genes with biparental expression show elevated rates of molecular evolution. Our results provide the clearest example yet of genome-wide genomic imprinting (parent-of-origin specific gene expression) in insects. Furthermore, it enhances our understanding of PGE, which will aid future empirical tests of evolutionary theory regarding the origin of this unusual reproductive strategy.

scholarly journals Parent-of-origin effects, allele-specific expression, genomic imprinting and paternal manipulation in social insects

2021 ◽  
Vol 376 (1826) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin P. Oldroyd ◽  
Boris Yagound
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Genomic Imprinting ◽  
Social Insects ◽  
Social Insect ◽  
Specific Gene ◽  
Specific Expression ◽  
Rna Molecules ◽  
Parent Of Origin ◽  
Origin Effects ◽  
Gene Expression Studies

Haplo-diploidy and the relatedness asymmetries it generates mean that social insects are prime candidates for the evolution of genomic imprinting. In single-mating social insect species, some genes may be selected to evolve genomic mechanisms that enhance reproduction by workers when they are inherited from a female. This situation reverses in multiple mating species, where genes inherited from fathers can be under selection to enhance the reproductive success of daughters. Reciprocal crosses between subspecies of honeybees have shown strong parent-of-origin effects on worker reproductive phenotypes, and this could be evidence of such genomic imprinting affecting genes related to worker reproduction. It is also possible that social insect fathers directly affect gene expression in their daughters, for example, by placing small interfering RNA molecules in semen. Gene expression studies have repeatedly found evidence of parent-specific gene expression in social insects, but it is unclear at this time whether this arises from genomic imprinting, paternal manipulation, an artefact of cyto-nuclear interactions, or all of these. This article is part of the theme issue ‘How does epigenetics influence the course of evolution?’

scholarly journals Epigenetic signatures associated with imprinted paternally-expressed genes in the Arabidopsis endosperm

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordi Moreno-Romero ◽  
Gerardo Del Toro-De León ◽  
Vikash Kumar Yadav ◽  
Juan Santos-González ◽  
Claudia Köhler
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Genomic Imprinting ◽  
High Accuracy ◽  
Preimplantation Embryos ◽  
Specific Gene ◽  
Imprinted Genes ◽  
Specific Gene Expression ◽  
Vegetative Tissues ◽  
Functional Relevance ◽  
Epigenetic Signatures

ABSTRACTBackgroundImprinted genes are epigenetically modified during gametogenesis and maintain the established epigenetic signatures after fertilization, causing parental-specific gene expression.ResultsIn this study, we show that imprinted paternally-expressed genes (PEGs) in the Arabidopsis endosperm are marked by an epigenetic signature of Polycomb Repressive Complex2 (PRC2)-mediated H3K27me3 together with heterochromatic H3K9me2 and CHG methylation, which specifically mark the silenced maternal alleles of PEGs. The co-occurrence of H3K27me3 and H3K9me2 on defined loci in the endosperm drastically differs from the strict separation of both pathways in vegetative tissues, revealing tissue-specific employment of repressive epigenetic pathways in plants. Based on the presence of this epigenetic signature on maternal alleles we were able to predict known PEGs at high accuracy and identified several new PEGs that we confirmed using INTACT-based transcriptomes generated in this study.ConclusionsThe presence of the three repressive epigenetic marks, H3K27me3, H3K9me2, and CHG methylation on the maternal alleles in the endosperm serves as a specific epigenetic signature that allows to predict genes with parental-specific gene expression. Our study reveals that there are substantially more PEGs than previously identified, indicating that paternal-specific gene expression is of higher functional relevance than currently estimated. The combined activity of PRC2-mediated H3K27me3 together with the heterochromatic H3K9me3 has also been reported to silence the maternal Xist locus in mammalian preimplantation embryos, suggesting convergent employment of both pathways during the evolution of genomic imprinting.

Influence of epigenetic changes during oocyte growth on nuclear reprogramming after nuclear transfer

1998 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomohiro Kono
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Genomic Imprinting ◽  
Epigenetic Mechanism ◽  
Specific Gene ◽  
Paternal Genome ◽  
Specific Expression ◽  
Oocyte Growth ◽  
Specific Gene Expression ◽  
Mammalian Embryos ◽  
Allele Specific

Genomic imprinting is the epigenetic mechanism that distinguishes whether the loci that are inherited from the maternal or paternal genome lead to parent-specific gene expression. The mechanism also regulates development in mammalian embryos. Genomic imprinting is established after implantation according to the specific markers that are imposed on the genome during gametogenesis; the allele-specific gene expression is then maintained throughout embryogenesis. The genomic imprinting markers are erased and renewed on an own-sex basis only in cells that differentiate into germline cells. This report shows that the epigenetic modifications that occur during oogenesis perform the crucial function of establishing the allele-specific expression of imprinted genes, and also suggests that the epigenetic DNA modification is related to the reprogramming and aberrant development seen in manipulated embryos.

Genomic imprinting in ruminants: allele-specific gene expression in parthenogenetic sheep

1998 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 831-834 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Feil ◽  
Sanjeev Khosla ◽  
Pietro Cappai ◽  
Pasqualino Loi
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Genomic Imprinting ◽  
Specific Gene ◽  
Specific Gene Expression ◽  
Allele Specific
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