Epigenetic modifications during oocyte growth correlates with extended parthenogenetic development in the mouse
- 1 May 1996
- journal article
- letter
- Published by Springer Nature in Nature Genetics
- Vol. 13 (1) , 91-94
Abstract
In mammals, the maternal and paternal genomes are required for embryonic development1–5. This is due to genomic imprinting which leads to the expression or repression of genes solely on the basis of the parent from which they were inherited6–9 As a result, parthenogenetic embryos die before day 10 of gestation and show limited development of extra-embryonic membranes3,4. Maternal imprinting is established during oogenesis6–11 and is associated with allele specific modifications in DMA methylation. We have investigated epigenetic modifications during oocyte growth using nuclear transfer techniques to produce mature oocytes with maternal chro-matin derived from non-growing oocytes. Parthenogenetic activation of such oocytes leads to the development of normal size fetuses with a well developed placenta on day 13.5 of gestation; three days further than previously recorded for parthenogenetic development. In contrast, after fertilization, only one embryo was recovered on 9.5 days of gestation. Further, in these embryos we investigated the well characterized methylation pattern of the maternally expressed insulin-like growth factor II receptor gene (lgf2r) and found that the pattern of methylation was indeed different to that of fertilized control embryos. Thus, the embryonic phenotypes observed here correlate with changes in epigenetic events that normally occur during oocyte growth.Keywords
This publication has 27 references indexed in Scilit:
- Maternal-specific methylation of the imprinted mouse Igf2r locus identifies the expressed locus as carrying the imprinting signalCell, 1993
- Parental-specific methylation of an imprinted transgene is established during gametogenesis and progressively changes during embryogenesisCell, 1991
- The House Mouse1989
- Genomic imprinting.Genes & Development, 1988
- Influence of parental chromosomes on spatial specificity in androgenetic ↔ parthenogenetic chimaeras in the mouseNature, 1987
- Nuclear transplantation in the mouse: Heritable differences between parental genomes after activation of the embryonic genomeCell, 1986
- Completion of mouse embryogenesis requires both the maternal and paternal genomesCell, 1984
- Development of reconstituted mouse eggs suggests imprinting of the genome during gametogenesisNature, 1984
- Development of Gynogenetic Eggs in the Mouse: Implications for Parthenogenetic EmbryosScience, 1983
- The role of germinal vesicle karyoplasm in the development of male pronucleus in the mouseExperimental Cell Research, 1980