Untimely expression of gametogenic genes in vegetative cells causes uniparental disomy.

ABSTRACT: Uniparental disomy (UPD), in which an individual contains a pair of homologous chromosomes originating from only one parent, is a frequent phenomenon that is linked to congenital disorders and various cancers. UPD is thought to result mostly from pre- or post-zygotic chromosome missegregation. However, the factors that drive UPD remain unknown. Here we use the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe as a model to investigate UPD, and show that defects in the RNA interference (RNAi) machinery or in the YTH domain-containing RNA elimination factor Mmi1 cause high levels of UPD in vegetative diploid cells. This phenomenon is not due to defects in heterochromatin assembly at centromeres. Notably, in cells lacking RNAi components or Mmi1, UPD is associated with the untimely expression of gameto

SUBMITTER: Folco HD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5567995 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature