The investigators propose a multifaceted approach to gain new insights into the mechanisms of imprinting, its relation to DNA methylation, and its effect on the cloning of mammals. Their principal hypothesis is that one can interfere experimentally with the establishment and/or maintenance of the """"""""imprinting marks"""""""" of imprinted genes in order to generate animals which are devoid of imprinting. For this they will use the sequential inactivation and reactivation of DNA methyltransferase Dnmt-1 as a tool to remove methylation marks specifically from imprinted genes or, alternatively, they will use nuclear cloning of nuclei from nonimprinted ES cells to create """"""""imprint-free"""""""" embryos or animals. Inactivation and reactivation of Dnmt-1 will be accomplished by conditional Dnmt-1 alleles controlled by the Cre and Flp recombinases, respectively. The phenotype of """"""""imprint-free"""""""" embryos or mice should provide new insights into the role of imprinting in mammalian development. The most spectacular outcome of the experiment would be the generation of imprint-free but otherwise normal mice, a result which would argue against any intrinsic role of imprinting in mammalian development. Finally, they will use imprint-free embryos or mice as a source for isolating novel imprinted genes and they will study the nature of imprinted X chromosome inactivation. These experiments are also relevant for defining some of the parameters that are important for successful cloning of mammals by nuclear transplantation. Presumably, mammalian cloning requires """"""""epigenetic reprogramming"""""""" of the somatic genome. An important goal is, therefore, to characterize the methylation changes imposed on the genome of the donor nucleus following transfer into the oocyte. These experiments will test the hypothesis that errors in the maintenance of imprinting marks increase during the life of the donor and that this is a major cause for the low success rate of mammalian cloning by nuclear transplantation. So far it has been not possible to employ gene targeting approaches in species such as rats because ES cells are available only from mice. The cloning of mammals by nuclear transplantation has opened novel and exciting opportunities to employ established gene targeting approaches in species that will permit the establishment of model systems crucial for efforts to study complex diseases such as cancer. This program attempts to define the biological parameters which limit the nuclear cloning approach.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Type
Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) Award (R37)
Project #
5R37CA084198-09
Application #
7386723
Study Section
Cell Development and Function Integrated Review Group (CDF)
Program Officer
Okano, Paul
Project Start
2000-05-01
Project End
2009-04-30
Budget Start
2008-05-01
Budget End
2009-04-30
Support Year
9
Fiscal Year
2008
Total Cost
$1,226,340
Indirect Cost
Name
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
Department
Type
DUNS #
120989983
City
Cambridge
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02142
Muffat, Julien; Li, Yun; Omer, Attya et al. (2018) Human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived glial cells and neural progenitors display divergent responses to Zika and dengue infections. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 115:7117-7122
Edupuganti, Raghu Ram; Harikumar, Arigela; Aaronson, Yair et al. (2017) Alternative SET/TAFI Promoters Regulate Embryonic Stem Cell Differentiation. Stem Cell Reports 9:1291-1303
Oh, Chang-Ki; Sultan, Abdullah; Platzer, Joseph et al. (2017) S-Nitrosylation of PINK1 Attenuates PINK1/Parkin-Dependent Mitophagy in hiPSC-Based Parkinson's Disease Models. Cell Rep 21:2171-2182
Harikumar, Arigela; Edupuganti, Raghu Ram; Sorek, Matan et al. (2017) An Endogenously Tagged Fluorescent Fusion Protein Library in Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells. Stem Cell Reports 9:1304-1314
Liu, X Shawn; Wu, Hao; Ji, Xiong et al. (2016) Editing DNA Methylation in the Mammalian Genome. Cell 167:233-247.e17
Muffat, Julien; Li, Yun; Jaenisch, Rudolf (2016) CNS disease models with human pluripotent stem cells in the CRISPR age. Curr Opin Cell Biol 43:96-103
Banerjee, Abhishek; Rikhye, Rajeev V; Breton-Provencher, Vincent et al. (2016) Jointly reduced inhibition and excitation underlies circuit-wide changes in cortical processing in Rett syndrome. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 113:E7287-E7296
Cohen, Malkiel A; Wert, Katherine J; Goldmann, Johanna et al. (2016) Human neural crest cells contribute to coat pigmentation in interspecies chimeras after in utero injection into mouse embryos. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 113:1570-5
Wu, Jun; Greely, Henry T; Jaenisch, Rudolf et al. (2016) Stem cells and interspecies chimaeras. Nature 540:51-59
Zhao, Zhigang; Chen, Li; Dawlaty, Meelad M et al. (2015) Combined Loss of Tet1 and Tet2 Promotes B Cell, but Not Myeloid Malignancies, in Mice. Cell Rep 13:1692-704

Showing the most recent 10 out of 91 publications