Abstract
Uniparental mouse embryos are generally used in the study of imprinting mechanisms as models to determine parental expression of imprinted genes. In this study, we used the real-time RT-PCR method to carry out a quantitative analysis of the expression of the insulin-like growth factor II (Igf2) gene, which is imprinted and expressed solely from the paternal allele, in androgenetic and parthenogenetic fetuses at day 9.5 of gestation. The mean expression, relative to that of control biparental fetuses, was detected to be 319% (90 to 585%) in androgenetic fetuses and 5.9% (3.7 to 9.5%) in parthenogenetic fetuses. The present results confirm that parental-specific expression of the Igf2 gene is maintained in uniparental fetuses, and also show that the real-time RT-PCR procedure is an effective method for quantitative analysis of gene expression using amounts of mRNA that are too small for other methods to detect.
