BACKGROUND It has long been thought that the factors affecting embryo and foetal
development were exclusively maternally derived; hence, if issues regarding fertility and …

Mammalian fertilization begins with the fusion of two specialized gametes, followed by major
epigenetic remodeling leading to the formation of a totipotent embryo. During the …

Parental epigenomes are established during gametogenesis. While they are largely reset
after fertilization, broad domains of Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2)-mediated …

Differentiated somatic cells can be reprogrammed to totipotent embryos through somatic cell
nuclear transfer (SCNT) with low efficiency. The histone deacetylase inhibitor trichostatin A …

Genomic imprinting and X chromosome inactivation (XCI) require epigenetic mechanisms to
encode allele-specific expression, but how these specific tasks are accomplished at single …

Genomic imprinting is illustrative of intergenerational epigenetic inheritance. The passage of
parental genomes into the embryo is accompanied by epigenetic modifications, resulting in …

In 1996, when Dolly the sheep was born, a new, utopian era was expected to begin. Science
fiction and popular culture instantly threatened the public with shortly upcoming human …

Genomic imprinting regulates parental origin-dependent monoallelic gene expression. It is
mediated by either germline differential methylation of DNA (canonical imprinting) or oocyte …

Mammalian oocytes can reprogram differentiated somatic cells into a totipotent state through
somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), which is known as cloning. Although many mammalian …

Background: DNA methylation (DNAme) and histone posttranslational modifications (PTMs)
play an integral role in the transcriptional regulation of specific sets of genes and …