Sex dependent imprinting effects on complex traits in mice

Abstract

Genomic imprinting is an epigenetic source of variation in quantitative traits that results from monoallelic gene expression, where commonly either only the paternally- or the maternally-derived allele is expressed. Imprinting has been shown to affect a diversity of complex traits in a variety of species. For several such quantitative traits sex-dependent genetic effects have been discovered, but whether imprinting effects also show such sex-dependence has yet to be explored. Moreover, theoretical work on the evolution of sex-dependent genomic imprinting effects makes specific predictions about the phenotypic patterns of such effects, which, however, have not been assessed empirically to date.