Colonies of eusocial Hymenoptera, such as ants, bees and wasps, have long been recognized as candidates for the study of genomic imprinting on the grounds of evolutionary conflicts that arise from close interactions among colony members and relatedness asymmetry owing to haplodiploidy. Although a general kinship theory of genomic imprinting predicts its occurrence under various circumstances of...

Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is an unusual, rare complex autosomal neurodevelopmental disease resulting from genomic imprinting and uniparental disomy of maternal chromosome 15 with a simultaneous functional loss of the parental part 15q11.2-q13. This article briefly elucidates the phenomenon of genomic imprinting, focuses on the diverse clinical features of PWS and concludes with the management...

Although we inherit two copies of all genes, except those that reside on the sex chromosomes, there is a subset of these genes in which only the paternal or maternal copy is functional. This phenomenon of monoallelic, parent-of-origin expression of genes is termed genomic imprinting. Imprinted genes are normally involved in embryonic growth and behavioral development, but occasionally they also...

In contrast to the biallelic expression of most genes, expression of imprinted genes is monoallelic and depends on the sex of the transmitting parents. In humans it has been implicated in some developmental failures, neurodevelopmental and neurobehavioral disorders (such as Prader-Willi/Angelman, Silver-Russel or Beckwith-Wiedemann syndromes). The aim of this review is to present the phenomenon...

In classical Mendelian inheritance, each parent donates a set of chromosomes to its offspring so that maternally and paternally encoded information is expressed equally. The phenomena of X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) and autosomal imprinting in mammals violate this dogma of genetic equality. In XCI, one of the two female X chromosomes is silenced to equalize X-linked gene dosage between XX an...

Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is an unusual, rare complex autosomal neurodevelopmental disease resulting from genomic imprinting and uniparental disomy of maternal chromosome 15 with a simultaneous functional loss of the parental part 15q11.2-q13. This article briefly elucidates the phenomenon of genomic imprinting, focuses on the diverse clinical features of PWS and concludes with the management...

Genomic imprinting results in the differential expression of genes, depending on which allele is inherited from the mother and which from the father. The effects of such differential gene expression are reflected in phenotypic differences between the reciprocal heterozygotes (Aa vs. aA). Although many imprinted genes have been identified and play a key role in development, little is known about...

Genomic imprinting is a phenomenon whereby monoallelic gene expression occurs in a parent-of-origin-specific manner. A subset of imprinted genes acquires a tissue-specific imprinted status during the course of tissue development, and this process can be analyzed by means of an in vitro differentiation system utilizing embryonic stem (ES) cells. In neurons, the gene Ube3a is expressed from the m...

Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is an unusual, rare complex autosomal neurodevelopmental disease resulting from genomic imprinting and uniparental disomy of maternal chromosome 15 with a simultaneous functional loss of the parental part 15q11.2-q13. This article briefly elucidates the phenomenon of genomic imprinting, focuses on the diverse clinical features of PWS and concludes with the management...

Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is an unusual, rare complex autosomal neurodevelopmental disease resulting from genomic imprinting and uniparental disomy of maternal chromosome 15 with a simultaneous functional loss of the parental part 15q11.2-q13. This article briefly elucidates the phenomenon of genomic imprinting, focuses on the diverse clinical features of PWS and concludes with the management...