English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Zendy Open

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Insights

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Zendy Tools

Zendy Plus

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Genomic imprinting is a phenomenon whereby monoallelic gene expression occurs in a parent-of-origin-specific manner. A subset of imprinted genes acquires a tissue-specific imprinted status during the course of tissue development, and this process can be analyzed by means of an  in vitro  differentiation system utilizing embryonic stem (ES) cells. In neurons, the gene  Ube3a  is expressed from the maternal allele only, and a paternally expressed non-coding, antisense RNA has been implicated in the imprinting process in mice and humans. Here, to study the genomic imprinting mechanism, we established F1 hybrid ES cells derived from two sub-species of  Mus musculus  and established an  in vitro  neuronal differentiation system in which neuron-specific imprinting of  Ube3a  was recapitulated. With this system, we revealed that the switch from biallelic expression to maternal, monoallelic expression of  Ube3a  occurs late in neuronal development, during the neurite outgrowth period, and that the expression of endogenous antisense transcript from the  Ube3a  locus is up-regulated several hundred-fold during the same period. Our results suggest that evaluation of the quality of ES cells by studying their differentiation  in vitro  should include evaluation of epigenetic aspects, such as a comparison with the genomic imprinting status found in tissues  in vivo , in addition to the evaluation of differentiation gene markers and morphology. Our F1 hybrid ES cells and  in vitro  differentiation system will allow researchers to investigate complex end-points such as neuron-specific genomic imprinting, and our F1 hybrid ES cells are a useful resource for other tissue-specific genomic imprinting and epigenetic analyses.

ES cell differentiation system recapitulates the establishment of imprinted gene expression in a cell-type-specific manner