Planting the Paternal Genome

Active demethylation of the paternal genome in the mouse zygote

DNA methylation is essential for the control of a number of biological mechanisms in mammals [1]. Mammalian development is accompanied by two major waves of genome-wide demethylation and remethylation: one during germ-cell development and the other after fertilisation [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]. Most previous studies have suggested that the genome-wide demethylation observed after fertilisation oc...

The mitochondrial genome, paternal age and telomere length in humans

Telomere length (TL) in humans is highly heritable and undergoes progressive age-dependent shortening in somatic cells. By contrast, sperm donated by older men display comparatively long telomeres, presumably because in the male germline, telomeres become longer with age. This puzzling phenomenon might explain why TL in the offspring correlates positively with paternal age. The present communic...

Planting the Living City

Genome-wide and gene specific paternal demethylation in androgenetic embryos.

In the present study, a genome-wide measure of demethylation employing the 5 methylcytidine antibody as well as a gene specific approach by bisulphite sequencing of a house keeping and imprinted genes was investigated to confirm if the active paternal demethylation was occurred correctly in mouse haploid, diploid androgenetic and triploid polyspermic embryos. The results indicated that the acti...

Presumed Paternal Genome Loss During Embryogenesis of Predatory Phytoseiid Mites