Brown Carolyn J, Greally John M
Department of Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, 6174 University Blvd, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z3.
Trends Genet. 2003 Aug;19(8):432-8. doi: 10.1016/S0168-9525(03)00177-X.
X-chromosome inactivation is a remarkable epigenetic event in mammalian females that results in the transcriptional silencing of one of the pair of X chromosomes. However, not all X-linked genes are subject to inactivation, and in humans, the proportion of genes on the X chromosome that escapes inactivation is more than 15%. Here we examine the causes and consequences of failure to silence the entire X chromosome. We discuss the impact of the evolutionary history of the X (and Y) chromosome, and the bioinformatic approaches that promise to provide new insights into the genomic architecture of genes or regions that escape X-chromosome inactivation.
X染色体失活是哺乳动物雌性中一种显著的表观遗传事件，它导致一对X染色体中的一条发生转录沉默。然而，并非所有X连锁基因都会发生失活，在人类中，X染色体上逃避失活的基因比例超过15%。在这里，我们研究了未能使整个X染色体沉默的原因和后果。我们讨论了X（和Y）染色体进化史的影响，以及有望为逃避X染色体失活的基因或区域的基因组结构提供新见解的生物信息学方法。
