Recent acquisition of imprinting at the rodent Sfmbt2 locus correlates with insertion of a large block of miRNAs.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The proximal region of murine Chr 2 has long been known to harbour one or more imprinted genes from classic genetic studies involving reciprocal translocations. No imprinted gene had been identified from this region until our study demonstrated that the PcG gene Sfmbt2 is expressed from the paternally inherited allele in early embryos and extraembryonic tissues. Imprinted genes generally reside in clusters near elements termed Imprinting Control Regions (ICRs), suggesting that Sfmbt2 might represent an anchor for a new imprinted domain.

Results

We analyzed allelic expression of approximately 20 genes within a 3.9 Mb domain and found that Sfmbt2 and an overlapping non-coding antisense transcript are the only imprinted genes in this region. These transcripts represe

SUBMITTER: Wang Q 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3110154 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature