Identification of Novel Imprinted Genes in a Genome-Wide Screen for Maternal Methylation

A characteristic of imprinted genes is that the maternal and paternal alleles show differences in methylation. To perform a genome-wide screen for novel imprinted loci, we applied methylation-sensitive representational difference analysis (Me-RDA) to parthenogenetic mouse embryos, to identify differentially methylated regions (DMRs) methylated specifically on the maternal allele. We isolated a total of 26 distinct clones from known and novel DMRs and identified three novel imprinted genes. Nap1l5 is located on proximal chromosome 6 and encodes a protein with homology with nucleosome assembly proteins (NAPs); it has tissue-specific imprinting with expression from the paternal allele. We identified two DMRs on chromosome 15, a chromosome that was not thought to contain imprinted loci, and demonstrated that each is associated with a paternally expressed transcript. Peg13 gives rise to a noncoding RNA that is highly expressed in the brain and imprinted in all tissues examined. A DMR was also identified at the chromosome 15 Slc38a4 gene, which encodes a system A amino acid transporter; we show that Slc38a4 is imprinted in a tissue-specific manner. Interestingly, two of the three novel genes identified in this screen are located within the introns of other genes; their identification indicates that such "microimprinted" domains may be more common than previously thought.