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Science 30 January 2004:
Vol. 303. no. 5658, pp. 666 - 669
DOI: 10.1126/science.1092674
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Reports

Reactivation of the Paternal X Chromosome in Early Mouse Embryos

Winifred Mak,1 Tatyana B. Nesterova,1 Mariana de Napoles,1 Ruth Appanah,1 Shinya Yamanaka,2 Arie P. Otte,3 Neil Brockdorff1*

It is generally accepted that paternally imprinted X inactivation occurs exclusively in extraembryonic lineages of mouse embryos, whereas cells of the embryo proper, derived from the inner cell mass (ICM), undergo only random X inactivation. Here we show that imprinted X inactivation, in fact, occurs in all cells of early embryos and that the paternal X is then selectively reactivated in cells allocated to the ICM. This contrasts with more differentiated cell types where X inactivation is highly stable and generally irreversible. Our observations illustrate that an important component of genome plasticity in early development is the capacity to reverse heritable gene silencing decisions.

1 X inactivation group, MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, ICSM, Hammersmith Hospital, London, W12 0NN, UK.
2 Laboratory of Animal Molecular Technology, Research and Education Center for Genetic information, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Nara 630-0192, Japan.
3 Swammerdam Institute of Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Plantage Muidergracht 12, 1018 TV Amsterdam, Netherlands.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: neil.brockdorff{at}csc.mrc.ac.uk

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