Role of Transcription in Imprint Establishment in the Male and Female Germ Lines

Abstract

The authors highlight an area of research that focuses on the establishment of genomic imprints: how the female and male germlines set up opposite instructions for imprinted genes in the maternally and paternally inherited chromosomes. Mouse genetics studies have solidified the role of transcription across the germline differentially methylated regions in the establishment of maternal genomic imprinting. One work now reveals that such transcription is also important in paternal imprinting establishment. This allows the authors to propose a unifying mechanism, in the form of transcription across germline differentially methylated regions, that specifies DNA methylation imprint establishment. Differences in the timing, genomic location and nature of such transcription events in the male versus female germlines in turn explain the difference between paternal and maternal imprints.

Keywords::

• establishment of DNA methylation
• genomic imprinting
• germline
• oocyte
• prospermatogonia

Author contributions

J Liao and PE Szabó wrote this review.

Financial disclosure

This work was supported by NIH R01GM064378 (PE Szabó) and by VAI (PE Szabó). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Competing interests disclosure

The authors have no competing interests or relevant affiliations with any organization or entity with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending or royalties.

Writing disclosure

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by NIH R01GM064378 (PE Szabó) and by VAI (PE Szabó). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.