Go to JCI Insight
  • About
  • Editors
  • Consulting Editors
  • For authors
  • Publication ethics
  • Publication alerts by email
  • Advertising
  • Job board
  • Contact
  • Clinical Research and Public Health
  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • By specialty
    • COVID-19
    • Cardiology
    • Gastroenterology
    • Immunology
    • Metabolism
    • Nephrology
    • Neuroscience
    • Oncology
    • Pulmonology
    • Vascular biology
    • All ...
  • Videos
    • Conversations with Giants in Medicine
    • Video Abstracts
  • Reviews
    • View all reviews ...
    • Complement Biology and Therapeutics (May 2025)
    • Evolving insights into MASLD and MASH pathogenesis and treatment (Apr 2025)
    • Microbiome in Health and Disease (Feb 2025)
    • Substance Use Disorders (Oct 2024)
    • Clonal Hematopoiesis (Oct 2024)
    • Sex Differences in Medicine (Sep 2024)
    • Vascular Malformations (Apr 2024)
    • View all review series ...
  • Viewpoint
  • Collections
    • In-Press Preview
    • Clinical Research and Public Health
    • Research Letters
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Editorials
    • Commentaries
    • Editor's notes
    • Reviews
    • Viewpoints
    • 100th anniversary
    • Top read articles

  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • Specialties
  • Reviews
  • Review series
  • Conversations with Giants in Medicine
  • Video Abstracts
  • In-Press Preview
  • Clinical Research and Public Health
  • Research Letters
  • Letters to the Editor
  • Editorials
  • Commentaries
  • Editor's notes
  • Reviews
  • Viewpoints
  • 100th anniversary
  • Top read articles
  • About
  • Editors
  • Consulting Editors
  • For authors
  • Publication ethics
  • Publication alerts by email
  • Advertising
  • Job board
  • Contact
Top
  • View PDF
  • Download citation information
  • Send a comment
  • Terms of use
  • Standard abbreviations
  • Need help? Email the journal
  • Top
  • The authors reply
  • References
  • Version history
  • Article usage
  • Citations to this article

Advertisement

Letter to the Editor Free access | 10.1172/JCI10912

The two-domain hypothesis in Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome

Eamonn R. Maher1 and Wolf Reik2

1Section of Medical and Molecular Genetics, Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom.2 Laboratory of Developmental Genetics and Imprinting, The Babraham Institute, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Find articles by Maher, E. in: PubMed | Google Scholar

1Section of Medical and Molecular Genetics, Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom.2 Laboratory of Developmental Genetics and Imprinting, The Babraham Institute, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Find articles by Reik, W. in: PubMed | Google Scholar

Published September 15, 2000 - More info

Published in Volume 106, Issue 6 on September 15, 2000
J Clin Invest. 2000;106(6):740–740. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI10912.
© 2000 The American Society for Clinical Investigation
Published September 15, 2000 - Version history
View PDF
The authors reply

A.P. Feinberg raises two questions: (a) the origin of the two-domain model, and (b) the organization of enhancers and insulators within chromosome 11p15.5. Our concept that two imprinting control centers exist within chromosome 11p15.5 was developed independently. In a series of reports, we established, first, that loss of imprinting of IGF2 in Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome (BWS) may be associated with H19 hypermethylation and silencing, consistent with loss of function in a distal imprinting center (1); second, that a BWS-associated maternally inherited inversion with a breakpoint within KCNQ1 was associated with an H19-independent loss of imprinting in IGF2 (2); and, finally, that such H19-independent loss of IGF2 imprinting is frequently found in sporadic cases of BWS that lack chromosomal rearrangements (3). The finding that epigenetic alterations at KvDMR1 and H19 appeared to be mutually exclusive provided us with confirmation of our concept (4). With regard to the organization of imprinting elements within 11p15.5, we agree that it is possible that the CDKN1C (p57KIP2) enhancer could be on the centromeric side, but we favor a telomeric location for several reasons. First, if the enhancer were centromeric, CDKN1C would need its own imprinting mechanism. This is less likely because (a) there is no differential methylation in the human (5); (b) a maternal germline imprint is required for activity of cdkn1c (6); (c) cdkn1c transgenes do not become imprinted (7); and (d) in Dnmt1-deficient mice, cdkn1c is biallelically expressed, but inspection of the gels shows that this could be a low-level expression from both alleles (8), corresponding to the low-level paternal expression in humans. Finally, and importantly, the organization suggested by A.P. Feinberg would require a closed boundary on the maternal chromosome and an open one on the paternal chromosome, but KvDMR1 methylation is maternal (presumably indicating that the boundary is open, as with the H19 upstream region).

References
  1. Reik, W, et al. Imprinting mutations in the Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome suggested by an altered imprinting pattern in the IGF2-H19 domain. Hum Mol Genet 1995. 4:2379-2385.
    View this article via: PubMed CrossRef Google Scholar
  2. Brown, KW, et al. Imprinting mutation in the Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome leads to biallelic IGF2 expression through an H19 independent pathway. Hum Mol Genet 1996. 6:2027-2032.
  3. Joyce, JA, et al. Imprinting of IGF2 and H19: lack of reciprocity in sporadic Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome. Hum Mol Genet 1997. 6:1543-1548.
    View this article via: PubMed CrossRef Google Scholar
  4. Smilinich, NJ, et al. A maternally methylated CpG island in KCNQ1 is associated with an antisense paternal transcript and loss of imprinting in Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1999. 96:8064-8069.
    View this article via: PubMed CrossRef Google Scholar
  5. Chung, WY, Yuan, L, Feng, L, Hensle, T, Tycko, B. Chromosome 11p15.5 regional imprinting: comparative analysis of KIP2 and H19 in human tissues and Wilms’ tumors. Hum Mol Genet 1996. 5:1101-1108.
    View this article via: PubMed CrossRef Google Scholar
  6. Obata, Y, et al. Disruption of primary imprinting during oocyte growth leads to the modified expression of imprinted genes during embryogenesis. Development 1998. 125:1553-1560.
    View this article via: PubMed Google Scholar
  7. John, RM, Hodges, M, Little, P, Barton, SC, Surani, MA. A human p57(KIP2) transgene is not activated by passage through the maternal mouse germline. Hum Mol Genet 1999. 8:2211-2219.
    View this article via: PubMed CrossRef Google Scholar
  8. Caspary, T, Cleary, MA, Baker, CC, Guan, X-J, Tilghman, SM. Multiple mechanisms regulate imprinting of the mouse distal chromosome 7 gene cluster. Mol Cell Biol 1998. 18:3466-3474.
    View this article via: PubMed Google Scholar
Version history
  • Version 2 (September 15, 2000): No description

Article tools

  • View PDF
  • Download citation information
  • Send a comment
  • Terms of use
  • Standard abbreviations
  • Need help? Email the journal

Metrics

  • Article usage
  • Citations to this article

Go to

  • Top
  • The authors reply
  • References
  • Version history
Advertisement
Advertisement

Copyright © 2025 American Society for Clinical Investigation
ISSN: 0021-9738 (print), 1558-8238 (online)

Sign up for email alerts