Aberrant methylation of donor genome in cloned bovine embryos

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Title
Aberrant methylation of donor genome in cloned bovine embryos
Author(s)
Yong Kook Kang; Deog Bon Koo; Young Hee Choi; Jung Sun Park; An Sik Chung; Kyung Kwang Lee; Yong Mahn Han
Bibliographic Citation
Nature Genetics, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 173-177
Publication Year
2001
Abstract
Despite recent successes in cloning various animal species, the use of somatic cells as the source of donor nuclei has raised many practically relevant questions such as increased abortion rates, high birth weight and perinatal death. These anomalies may be caused by incomplete epigenetic reprogramming of donor DNA. Genome-wide demethylation occurs during early development, 'erasing' gamete-specific methylation patterns inherited from the parents. This process may be a prerequisite for the formation of pluripotent stem cells that are important for the later development. Here, we provide evidence that cloned bovine embryos may have impaired epigenetic reprogramming capabilities. We found highly aberrant methylation patterns in various genomic regions of cloned embryos. Cloned blastocysts closely resembled donor cells in their overall genomic methylation status, which was very different from that of normal blastocysts produced in vitro or in vivo. We found demethylation of the Bov-B long interspersed nuclear element sequence in normal embryos, but not in cloned embryos, in which the donor-type methylation was simply maintained during preimplantation development. There were also significant variations in the degree of methylation among individual cloned blastocysts. Our findings indicate that the developmental anomalies of cloned embryos could be due to incomplete epigenetic reprogramming of donor genomic DNA.
ISSN
1061-4036
Publisher
Springer-Nature Pub Group
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/88903
Type
Article
Appears in Collections:
Aging Convergence Research Center > 1. Journal Articles
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