Monitoring Dynamics of DNA Methylation at Single-Cell Resolution during Development and Disease
International Conference on Epigenetics and Bioengineering
2017
International Conference on Epigenetics and Bioengineering
General Submissions
Detecting epigenetic modifications (DNA, RNA, histones)
Thursday, December 14, 2017 - 12:00pm to 12:25pm
The reporter system was utilized to address a long-standing question in the field: are parent-specific methylation marks simply maintained or subjected to regulation during development and in postnatal animals? Our study identified striking regulation of parental imprinting following fertilization, resulting in tissue- and cell type-specific methylation patterns in adults. Interestingly, methylation changes were found to be highly dynamic in the adult brain, thus contributing to cellular epigenetic heterogeneity over time, with potential implications for aging. As prevalent belief posits that following fertilization, imprinted differentially methylated regions (DMRs) are mostly maintained in a passive fashion, our findings challenge the current dogma, supporting a dynamic role of DNA methylation in regulating imprinted DMRs during development. Collectively, these results substantiated the promise of the reporter system to be implemented in studying multiple biological systems, in the context of normal development as well as in disease.