| Literature DB >> 21567178 |
Susanne Arthold1, Agata Kurowski, Anton Wutz.
Abstract
In mammals, one of the two X chromosomes in female cells is transcriptionally silenced for dosage compensation between the sexes. Chromosome-wide silencing is initiated by the non-coding Xist RNA that accumulates within the inactive X chromosome territory and triggers gene repression and chromatin modifications. Epigenetic changes of the inactive X chromosome in a developmentally regulated manner result in stable gene repression in female somatic cells. X inactivation is a model for understanding the formation of facultative heterochromatin in mammalian development and represents a paradigm for RNA mediated regulation of gene expression. In this review, we summarize the present knowledge of the mechanism of chromosome-wide silencing and give an outlook on future directions.Entities:
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Year: 2011 PMID: 21567178 DOI: 10.1007/s00439-011-1002-0
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Hum Genet ISSN: 0340-6717 Impact factor: 4.132