Large-scale study: Every tissue has its own pattern of active alleles
From ScienceDaily: Every gene in (almost) every cell of the body is present in two variants — so called alleles: one is deriving from the mother, the other one from the father. In most cases both alleles are active and transcribed by the cells into an RNA message. However, for a few genes, only one allele is expressed, while the other one is silenced. The decision whether the maternal or the paternal version is shut down occurs early in embryonic development — one reason, why for long it was thought that the pattern of active alleles is nearly homogeneous in the various tissues of the organism. The new study (DOI:10.7554/eLife.25125), where CeMM PhD Student Daniel Andergassen is first author (now Read More ›