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Science 30 January 2004:
Vol. 303. no. 5658, pp. 633 - 634
DOI: 10.1126/science.1094408
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Perspectives

Also see the archival list of Science's Compass: Enhanced Perspectives

DEVELOPMENT:
Enhanced:
Programming the X Chromosome

Petra Hajkova and M. Azim Surani

To compensate for the fact that females have two X chromosomes but males have only one, each female cell has one X chromosome inactivated. In females, it is the paternal X chromosome that is preferentially inactivated in all placental cells, but not in cells that develop into the embryo. In their Perspective, Hajkova and Surani discuss new work (Okamoto et al., Mak et al.) showing that the cells that develop into the embryo have an inactivated paternal X at the start of embryogenesis, which becomes reactivated during the early stages of development.

The authors are at the Wellcome Trust Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1QR, UK. E-mail: as10021{at}molec.bio.cam.ac.uk

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Differential Methylation of Xite and CTCF Sites in Tsix Mirrors the Pattern of X-Inactivation Choice in Mice..
R. M. Boumil, Y. Ogawa, B. K. Sun, K. D. Huynh, and J. T. Lee (2006)
Mol. Cell. Biol. 26, 2109-2117
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
A Continuity of X-Chromosome Silence from Gamete to Zygote.
K.D. HUYNH and J.T. LEE (2004)
Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol 69, 103-112
   Abstract »    PDF »


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