Inactive allele-specific methylation and chromatin structure of the imprinted gene U2af1-rs1 on mouse chromosome 11

The imprinted U2af1-rs1 gene that maps to mouse chromosome 11 is predominately expressed from the paternal allele. We examined the methylation of genomic sequences in and around the U2af1-rs1 locus to establish the extent of sequence modifications that accompanied the silencing of the maternal allele. The analysis of HapII or HhaI sites showed that the silent maternal allele was hypermethylated in a block of CpG sequences that covered more than 10 kb. By comparison, the expressed paternal allele was unmethylated from a CpG island upstream of the transcribed region through 2 kb. An analysis of DNaseI hypersensitivity of a putative promoter of U2af1-rs1 showed an open chromatin conformation only on the unmethylated, expressed paternal allele. These results suggest that allele-specific hypermethylation covering the gene and its upstream CpG island plays a role in maternal allele repression of U2af1-rs1, which is reflected in altered chromatin conformation of DNaseI hypersensitive sites.