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Letter

Nature Genetics 34, 199–202 (1 June 2003) | doi:10.1038/ng1162

Trans allele methylation and paramutation-like effects in mice

Herry Herman , Michael Lu , Melly Anggraini , Aimee Sikora , Yanjie Chang , Bong June Yoon & Paul D Soloway

In mammals, imprinted genes have parent-of-origin–specific patterns of DNA methylation that cause allele-specific expression. At Rasgrf1 (encoding RAS protein-specific guanine nucleotide-releasing factor 1), a repeated DNA element is needed to establish methylation and expression of the active paternal allele.