PLX095844

GSE56276: Imprinted expression is different in visceral yolk sac and cystic embryoid body endoderm

• Organsim mouse
• Type RNASEQ
• Target gene
• Project ARCHS4

Genomic imprinting is an epigenetic phenomenon resulting in parent-of-origin mono-allelic expression of a small subset of mammalian genes. Imprinted genes have been categorized into two groups: multi lineage (ML) imprinted genes that can show imprinted expression in both embryonic and extra-embryonic lineages, and genes that show extra-embryonic lineage (EXEL) specific imprinted expression restricted to tissues like the placenta and visceral yolk sac (VYS) endoderm. Many genes showing EXEL imprinted expression are silenced by lncRNAs that act over long distances. Thus the analysis of this form of gene silencing is likely to be pivotal for understanding new mechanisms of long range gene silencing by lncRNAs. It has been reported that ES cells differentiated into cystic embryoid bodies (cystic EBs) contain VYS endoderm and here we investigate if cystic EBs could serve as an in vitro model for the analysis of EXEL imprinted expression. Unexpectedly we found that cystic EBs lack EXEL imprinted expression, while retaining normal imprinted expression of ML genes. This shows that cystic EBs do not model VYS imprinted expression and also argues against previous claims that cystic EBs contain VYS endoderm. We further characterized cystic EBs by performing RNA-seq and whole genome bisulphite sequencing. By comparison to various embryonic tissues we found that cystic EBs more resemble embryonic liver, which contains definitive endoderm, than the extra-embryonic endoderm of the VYS. SOURCE: Quanah,J,Hudson (qhudson@cemm.oeaw.ac.at) - CeMM - Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences