Meiotic sex chromosome inactivation

• DOI: 10.1242/dev.000018
• Publication Date: 2007-03-01T10:53:22Z
• Authors: James M. A. Turner
• Keywords: Dosage compensation

X chromosome inactivation is most commonly studied in the context of female mammalian development, where it performs an essential role dosage compensation. However, another form X-inactivation takes place male,during spermatogenesis, as germ cells enter meiosis. This second X-inactivation, called meiotic sex (MSCI) has emerged a novel paradigm for studying epigenetic regulation gene expression. New studies have revealed that MSCI special example more general mechanism silencing unsynapsed chromatin (MSUC), which silences chromosomes fail to pair with their homologous partners and, doing so, may protect against aneuploidy subsequent generations. Furthermore, failure emerging important etiological factor sterility.