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RESEARCH |
Department of BioScience, Tokyo University of Agriculture, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 156-8502, Japan
Correspondence should be addressed to T Kono; Email: tomohiro{at}nodai.ac.jp
| Abstract |
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13) together with its differentially unit (DMR). To gain an insight into the extended development of the parthenotes to term, we have here investigated the expression levels of paternally imprinted genes in ngH19
13/fgwt PE throughout their development. In ngH19
13/fgwt Pes that died soon after recovery, the expression of Igf2 and H19 was restored to the appropriate levels except for low Igf2 expression in the liver after E15.5. Further, the paternally expressed Dlk1 and Dio3 were repressed, while the expression levels of the maternal Gtl2 and Mirg were twice those of the controls. However, the above-mentioned four genes showed almost normal expression in the surviving ngH19
13/fgwt PEs. The methylation analysis revealed that the intragenic DMR of the Dlk1-Gtl2 domain was hypermethylated in the ngH19
13/fgwt PEs that survived, but not in the PEs that died soon after recovery. The present study suggests that two sets of co-ordinately regulated but oppositely expressed genes, Igf2-H19 and Dlk1-Gtl2, act as a critical barrier to parthenogenetic development in order to render a paternal contribution obligatory for descendants in mammals. | Introduction |
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To address the question of whether the collective expression of Igf2 accompanied by H19 would result in the extended development of parthenotes, we used mice with deletion of the H19 transcription unit (H19
13) together with its differentially methylated region (DMR) (Leighton et al. 1995) as an ng oocyte donor for the reconstruction of parthenogenetic embryos. In such types of parthenotes (ngH19
13/fgwt PE), the Igf2 and H19 genes were expressed and repressed respectively from the ngH19
13 alleles. These embryos successfully developed to term (Kono et al. 2004). With the exception of two pups, all parthenogenetic pups showed severe growth retardation and died before or shortly after their recovery from the uterus at 19.5 days of gestation. Two sets of co-ordinately regulated but oppositely expressed genes Igf2 and H19 and Dlk1 and Gtl2 (Kobayashi et al. 2000, Schmidt et al. 2000) were located on chromosome 7 and chromosome 12 respectively, and both sets were paternally imprinted during spermatogenesis. The Igf2 and Dlk1 genes that were expressed from paternal alleles acted as a foetal growth factor (Feil et al. 1994, Leighton et al. 1995, Georgiades et al. 2000, Moon et al. 2002). The role of H19 and Gtl2 genes, which are maternally expressed non-coding RNAs, is not completely known. The reason for the survival of only two parthenotes, and not the others, remains to be clarified. To gain further insight into the extended development of the ngH19
13/fgwt parthenogenetic embryo (PE), we carried out quantitative expression analysis of another set of paternally imprinted genes (Dlk1, Gtl2, Mirg and Dio3), which are members of the 1-Mb imprinted cluster on distal chromosome 12 (Lin et al. 2003).
| Materials and Methods |
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-minimum essential medium (
-MEM) (GIB-CO BRL, Grand Island, NY, USA). Throughout the experiment, the GV oocytes were manipulated in a medium containing 200 mM dbcAMP and 5% calf serum and released from the medium 1 h after fusion with an ng oocyte. A set of MII (metaphase of the second meiotic division) chromosomes from the reconstituted oocytes was transferred into a freshly ovulated MII oocyte. These reconstructed oocytes were then artificially activated with 10 mM SrCl2 in Ca2+-free M16 medium (Whittingham 1971) for 2 h. These embryos were cultured in M16 medium for 3.5 days in an atmosphere of 5% CO2, 5% O2 and 90% N2 at 37 °C. Blastocysts that were obtained from the constructed oocytes were transferred into the uterine horns of CD-1 female mice at day 2.5 of pseudopregnancy.
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13/fgwt PEs, the ngH19
13/fgwt PE survivors and controls at E12.5, 15.5, 18.5 and 19.5 by using an RNeasy mini kit (Qiagen, Tokyo, Japan). The cDNAs were synthesized using a SuperScript RnaseH'reverse transcriptase kit (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA, USA) in a reaction solution (20 µl) containing total RNA (1 µg) prepared from the tissues. Next, this synthesized cDNA was used for the quantitative analysis of the expression of imprinted genes by means of real-time quantitative RT-PCR (LightCycler System; Roche Molecular Biochemicals, Mannheim, Germany) using a ready-to-use reaction mixture kit (Light-Cycler FirstStart DNA Master SYBR Green I; Roche Molecular Biochemicals). The primer sequences used for the PCR reaction, the PCR conditions and the product sizes are listed in Table 1
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13/fgwt PE with growth retardation at E18.5, and the intestine (n = 1) and tail (n = 1) of the ngH19
13/fgwt PE that survived (survivors) at 19.5 and adult Kaguya respectively (Kono et al. 2004). As a control, tongue and tail at E18.5 (n = 3) and adult tail (n = 1) were collected from wt and used for DNA preparation. Methylation analysis was carried out by subjecting the samples to bisulphite modification, PCR amplification, subcloning and sequencing for the intergenic germline-derived (IG)-DMR of Dlk1-Gtl2 (Takada et al. 2002). The isolated DNA was treated with sodium bisulphite using a CpGenome modification kit (CHEMICON, CA, USA).
Staining (cartilage and bone)
Embryos at E18.5 were eviscerated and fixed in 90% ethanol for 2 weeks. Cartilage samples were stained with 0.01% Alcian blue (Sigma) in 80% ethanol and 20% glacial acetic acid. They were then rehydrated with a series of 70%, 40% and 15% ethanol incubations for 2 h with each concentration. For bone staining, samples were incubated with 0.001% Alizarin red (Sigma) in 1% KOH for 25 days. The samples were rinsed several times with 1% KOH and stored in glycerol.
Statistical analysis
The data regarding the rate of development of the embryos were analyzed by Chi-square analysis (a P value of less than 0.01 was considered to be statistically significant).
| Results |
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13/fgwt PEs, we recovered the PEs at E12.5, E15.5 and E18.5 (Fig. 2A
13/fgwt PEs (98 ± 1.8 mg, n = 5) was 15% less than that of the controls derived from fertilized embryos (98 ± 1.8 mg, n = 5 vs 115 ± 1.2 mg, n = 5), but the difference was not significant. However, the mean body weight gain of the ngH19
13/fgwt PEs was significantly greater than that of the ngwt/fgwt PEs (77 ± 3.0 mg, n = 5); this was 67% of the mean weight of the controls. It should be noted that thereafter the mean body weight of the ngH19
13/fgwt PEs was definitely reduced from 74% (311 ± 11.1 mg, n = 8), which was the mean weight of the controls at E15.5, to 55% (726 ± 15.5 mg, n = 7), which was the mean weight of the controls at E18.5 (Fig. 2B
13/fgwt PE at E18.5 formed a delayed ossification pattern and had an abnormally shaped thoracic cage (Fig. 2C
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13/fgwt PE
13/fgwt PEs. During the process of development, the expression levels of H19 and Igf2 were slightly reduced in the ngH19
13/fgwt PEs in most tissues as compared with the expression levels observed in the controls (Fig. 3A and B
13/fgwt PEs, Gtl2 was overexpressed to approximately twice the control level, showing a peak at E15.5 (Fig. 3C
13/fgwt PEs were approximately 70% of the controls, with the exception of the tongue (< 50%; Fig. 3E
13/fgwt PEs (Fig. 3F
13/fgwt PEs (Fig. 3G
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13/fgwt PE. The data clearly indicated that the expression of both paternally expressed Dlk1 and Dio3 and maternally expressed Gtl2 and Mirg were corrected in the survivor PEs, suggesting that both sets of paternally imprinted genes are certainly involved in the extended development of the ngH19
13/fgwt PE (Fig. 4
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13/fgwt PEs; this perhaps resulted in normal birth. To gain further insight into the correction of the gene expressions, we analysed the methylation status of the IG-DMR of the Dlk1-Gtl2 domain. The analysis of the tail of Kaguya showed that the IG-DMR of the ng allele was completely methylated and that of the fg allele was also partially methylated (Fig. 5
13/fgwt PE at E19.5 PE also showed complete methylation of the IG-DMR in the ng allele. However, the IG-DMR was completely unmethylated in the tongue and the intestine in the growth-retarded ngH19
13/fgwt PE at E18.5 (Fig. 5
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| Discussion |
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13/fgwt PEs, which were able to develop to term. Using mutant mice we successfully regulated the imprinted expressions of both Igf2 and H19 in the ngH19
13/fgwt PE, since the Igf2 and H19 genes are regulated by DMR located upstream of H19 sharing the same endoderm-derived tissue-specific enhancers located downstream of H19 (Feil et al. 1994, Sasaki et al. 1995, Thorvaldsen et al. 1998, Hark et al. 2000). In addition to being a major foetal growth regulator, Igf2 is a common regulator of haematopoietic stem cell differentiation (Zhang & Lodish 2004). We also confirmed that the Igf2 expression was repressed in the ngwt/fgwt PE (data not shown) and, as expected, it recovered in the ngH19
13/fgwt PE. However, similar to the ngwt/fgwt PE, the ngH19
13/fgwt PE continued to exhibit growth retardation (Fig. 2
Paternally imprinted Dlk1 and Gtl2 are also important with regard to foetal lethality and growth retardation in maternal disomic mice (Georgiades et al. 2000, Schmidt et al. 2000, Lin et al. 2003). They are another set of co-ordinately regulated but oppositely expressed genes, located on the distal region of chromosome 12. In the present study, we observed the increased expression of Dlk1 in the controls at E15.5, while the gene expression was repressed in all parthenotes, which showed retardation throughout development and were estimated to be unable to survive beyond E19.5 (Figs 3
and 4
). The repression of Dlk1 is thought to be a major reason for developmental failure in the ngH19
13/fgwt PE, since the paternally expressed Dlk1 encodes a cell-surface transmembrane protein and is essential for normal development (Moon et al. 2002), haematopoiesis (Doggett et al. 2002, La Motte-Mohs et al. 2005, Li et al. 2005) and ossification (Moon et al. 2002). The maternally expressed Gtl2 encodes an untranslated RNA and is enhanced in the ngH19
13/fgwt PE (Figs 3
and 4
); however, normal expression of Gtl2 was observed in some important tissues of other survivor with an apparently normal phenotype at birth (Fig. 4
) (Kono et al. 2004). These results suggest that the correct expressions of Dlk1 and Gtl2 also play important roles in the development and survival of the ng/fg PE. Moreover, the increased expression of the maternally expressed Mirg and the decreased expression of the paternally expressed Dio3 were also invested in the ngH19
13/fgwt PE (Figs 3
and 4
). Dlk1-Gtl2 also belongs to members of the 1-Mb imprinted cluster, which is located on mouse distal chromosome 12 (Lin et al. 2003). The phenotype of the ngH19
13/fgwt PE resembled that of the mice with mUPD for chromosome 12 (Georgiades et al. 2000) rather than that of the Dlk1 null mice (Moon et al. 2002). However, there is no evidence for the involvement of Dio3, Mirg, etc. in foetal development.
The present results, together with the results of our previous study (Kono et al. 2004), demonstrated that the normal level of paternally expressed Dlk1 was invested in Kaguya, which survived and grew up to adulthood with normal reproductive ability. We carried out further methylation analysis of the IG-DMR of Dlk1-Gtl2. Interestingly, we observed a higher frequency of hypermethylated patterns in the ngH19
13 allele and partial methylation in the fg allele (Fig. 5
). In contrast, the DMR of the ngH19
13/fgwt PE with growth retardation was completely hypomethylated. The reason for the different IG-DMR methylation patterns of Dlk1 in survivor ngH19
13/fgwt PEs is unknown. However, the data on both methylated ng and fg alleles suggests that the unexpected methylation of DMR could occur after oocyte reconstruction, but not during oogenesis. These results indicate that the normal expression of Dlk1 together with the neighbouring imprinted genes is an important factor in the normal development and survival of ngH19
13/fgwt PEs.
The present study demonstrated that the expression of the paternally imprinted genes regulates foetal growth after mid gestation; its inappropriate expression leads to foetal growth retardation and lethality in the ngH19
13/fgwt PE. Therefore, both paternally and maternally expressed genes act as a barrier to parthenogenesis in mammals. Together with the results of our previous studies, the present findings support the idea that adequate correction of the expression dosage of the imprinted genes (Igf2-H19 and Dlk1-Gtl2) by gene manipulation may promote long-term normal development in the ngH19
13/fgwt PE in mice.
| Acknowledgements |
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| Footnotes |
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