Abstract
The first imprinted genes were identified in the early 1990s (e.g., refs. 1 1,2) and there are now over 40 mammalian genes known to be regulated by genomic imprinting (for an up-to-date list, see ref. 3). The details of the mechanism that discriminates between the active and silent alleles of these genes, based on their parent of origin, may differ from one imprinted gene to the next, but must include some form of epigenetic mark that distinguishes alleles that have passed through the male or female germline (4-7). The addition of methyl groups to cytosine residues of CpG dinucleotides might provide such a mark, since regions of differential methylation have been identified in the vicinity of many of the known imprinted genes (8,9). Moreover, analysis of imprinted gene expression in a methyltransferase knockout (Dnmt1 -/-) mouse has shown that the imprint is lost in a number of cases, resulting in either two silent alleles (Igf2, Igf2r and Kvlqt) or two expressed alleles (H19, p57 kip2, Snrpn, and Xist) (4,10–12). Although there may be exceptions (for instance, imprinted expression of Mash2 is maintained in Dmnt1 -/- embryos; ref. 13), differential methylation is likely to be an important aspect of the imprinting mechanism that is relevant to most of the imprinted genes in mammals. There is accumulating evidence that methylation is also important for the imprinting of plant genes (reviewed in ref. 14).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Barlow, D. P., Stoger, R., Herrmann, B. G., Saito, K., and Schweifer, N. (1991) The mouse insulin?like growth factor type?2 receptor is imprinted and closely linked to the Tme locus. Nature 349, 84–87.
DeChiara, T. M., Efstratiadis, A., and Robertson, E. J. (1991) Parental imprinting of the mouse insulin?like growth factor II gene. Cell 64, 849–859.
Beechey, C. V., Cattanach, B. M., and Selley, R. L. (2000) MRC Mammalian Genetics Unit, Harwell, Oxfordshire. World Wide Web Site: Mouse Imprinting Data and References (URL: http://www.mgu.har.mrc.ac.uk/imprinting/implink.html).
Caspary, T., Cleary, M. A., Baker, C. C., Guan, X.J., and Tilghman, S. M. (1998) Multiple mechanisms regulate imprinting of the mouse distal chromosome 7 gene cluster. Mol. Cell Biol. 18, 3466–3474.
Brannan, C. I. and Bartolomei, M. S. (1999) Mechanisms of genomic imprinting. Curr. Opin. Genet. Dev. 9, 164–170.
Tilghman, S. M. (1999) The sins of the fathers and mothers: genomic imprinting in mammalian development. Cell 96, 185–19
Sleutels, F., Barlow, D. P., and Lyle, R. (2000) The uniqueness of the imprinting mechanism. Curr. Opin. Genet. Dev. 10, 229–233.
Razin, A. and Cedar, H. (1994) DNA methylation and genomic imprinting. Cell 77, 473–476.
Razin, A. and Shemer, R. (1995) DNA methylation in early development. Hum. Mol. Genet. 4, 1751–1755.
Li, E., Beard, C., and Jaenisch, R. (1993) Role for DNA methylation in genomic imprinting. Nature 366, 362–365.
Beard, C., Li, E., and Jaenisch, R. (1995) Loss of methylation activates Xist in somatic but not in embryonic cells. Genes Dev. 9, 2325–2334.
Shemer, R., Birger, Y., Riggs, A. D., and Razin, A. (1997) Structure of the imprinted mouse Snrpn gene and establishment of its parental?specific methylation pattern. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 94,10, 267–10,272.
Tanaka, M., Puchyr, M., Gertsenstein, M., Harpal, K., Jaenisch, R., Rossant, J., and Nagy, A. (1999) Parental origin?specific expression of Mash2 is established at the time of implantation with its imprinting mechanism highly resistant to genome?wide demethylation. Mech. Dev. 87, 129–142.
Vinkenoog, R., Spielman, M., Adams, S., Dickinson, H. G., and Scott, R. J. (2000) Genomic imprinting in plants, in Methods in Molecular Biology-Genomic Imprinting (Ward, A., ed.), Humana Press, Totowa, NJ, chapter 25, pp. 327–370.
Sambrook, J., Fritsch, E. F., and Maniatis, T. (1989) Molecular Cloning-A Laboratory Manual, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY
Heery, D., Gannon, F., and Powell, R. (1990) A simple method for subcloning DNA fragments from gel slices. Trends Genet. 6, 173.
Renbaum, P., Abrahamove, D., Fainsod, A., G. G., W., Rottem, S., and Razin, A. (1990) Cloning, characterisation, and expression in Escherichia coli of the gene coding for the CpG DNA methylase from Spiroplasma sp. strain MQ1 (M.SssI) Nucleic Acids Res. 18, 1145–1152.
Matsuo, K., Silke, J., Gramatikoff, K., and Schaffner, W. (1991) The CpG?specific methylase SssI has topoisomerase activity in the presence of Mg2+. Nucleic Acids Res. 22, 5354–5359.
Holmgren, C., Kanduri, C., Dell, G. C., Ward, A., Mukhopadhya, R., Lobanenkov, V., and Ohlsson, R. (2001) CpG methylation regulates the H19 insulator. Curr. Biol. 11, in pres
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2002 Humana Press Inc., Totowa, NJ
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Dell, G., Charalambous, M., Ward, A. (2002). In Vitro Methylation of Specific Regions in Recombinant DNA Constructs by Excision and Religation. In: Ward, A. (eds) Genomic Imprinting. Methods in Molecular Biology™, vol 181. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-211-2:251
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-211-2:251
Publisher Name: Humana Press
Print ISBN: 978-0-89603-741-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-59259-211-1
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols