Sexual differences of imprinted genes' expression levels.

ABSTRACT: In mammals, genomic imprinting has evolved as a dosage-controlling mechanism for a subset of genes that play critical roles in their unusual reproduction scheme involving viviparity and placentation. As such, many imprinted genes are highly expressed in sex-specific reproductive organs. In the current study, we sought to test whether imprinted genes are differentially expressed between the two sexes. According to the results, the expression levels of the following genes differ between the two sexes of mice: Peg3, Zim1, Igf2, H19 and Zac1. The expression levels of these imprinted genes are usually greater in males than in females. This bias is most obvious in the developing brains of 14.5-dpc embryos, but also detected in the brains of postnatal-stage mice. However, this sexual bias is not

SUBMITTER: Faisal M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3872986 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature