Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Genomic imprinting

Making sense or antisense?

Nature volume 389, pages 669–671 (1997)Cite this article

Genomic imprinting is a genetic mechanism by which genes are expressed from the maternal or paternal chromosomes1, and loss of imprinting is involved in a variety of diseases and cancers. All the imprinted genes that have been studied so far have regions in which the maternal and paternal DNA copies are methylated differently at CpG residues — cytosine-guanine base pairs. So DNA methylation is suspected to be the signal from the parental germ cells that results in the allele-specific expression of imprinted genes. Indeed, in mice that do not have methylation (because of mutation in the methyltransferase gene), imprinting is altered2.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Wutz et al.3 have shown that differentially methylated regions in the Igf2r gene can carry a critical imprinting signal.
Figure 2: Models for paternal silencing of Igf2r.

References

  1. Reik, W. & Surani, M. A. (eds) Frontiers in Molecular Biology (Oxford Univ. Press, 1997).

  2. Li, E., Beard, C. & Jaenisch, R. Nature 366, 362–365 (1993).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Wutz, A. et al. Nature 389, 745–749 (1997).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Ainscough, J. F. X., Koide, T., Tada, M., Barton, S. & Surani, M. A. Development 124, 3621–3632 (1997).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Leighton, P. A., Ingram, R. S., Eggenschwiler, J., Efstratiadis, A. & Tilghman, S. M. Nature 375, 34–39 (1995).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Herzing, L. B. K., Romer, J. T., Horn, J. M. & Ashworth, A. Nature 386, 272–275 (1997).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Lee, J. T. & Jaenisch, R. Nature 386, 275–279 (1997).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Elson, D. A. & Bartolomei, M. S. Mol. Cell. Biol. 17, 309–317 (1997).

    Google Scholar 

  9. Moore, T. et al. (in the press).

  10. Xu, Y., Grundy, P. & Polychronakos, C. Oncogene 14, 1041–1046 (1997).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Laboratory of Developmental Genetics and Imprinting, The Babraham Institute, Cambridge, CB2 4AT, UK

    Wolf Reik & Miguel Constancia

Authors
  1. Wolf Reik
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Miguel Constancia
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Reik, W., Constancia, M. Making sense or antisense?. Nature 389, 669–671 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/39461

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/39461

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing