[Genomic imprinting in the epigenetics of mammals]

Genomic imprinting is one of the most remarkable and important epigenetic phenomena. A biological ban on parthenogenetic and androgenetic development of mammals is an obvious consequence of genomic imprinting. Genomic imprinting defects may cause malformations, clinical syndromes, and tumor growth in humans and to the large offspring syndrome and an increased mortality after in vitro manipulations with early embryos in mammals. Differential expression of parental alleles during ontogeny implies a mechanism of reversible, selective marking of gene alleles. These relatively stable epigenetic modifications, which do not affect the primary nucleotide sequence of DNA, may be transmitted in somatic cell lines and reproduced in the germ line. The genomic imprinting mechanism may be involved in other epigenetic processes, such as epigenetic inheritance, nonrandom allele segregation, meiotic drive, etc. Artificial modulation of genomic imprinting effects with the use of growth factors and demethylating agents permits partial "normocoping" during the development of parthenogenetic mouse embryos. Targeted changes in the transcriptional activity of imprinted genes provide prerequisites for epigenetic correction of syndromes and diseases caused by genomic imprinting defects.