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.