Bhavani P.¹ , Harinikumar K.M.¹ , Shashidhar H.E.¹ , Sajad Majeed Zargar²

1. Department of Biotechnology, University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore, Karnataka-560065, India
2. School of Biotechnology, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Jammu, Chatha, Jammu, J&K-180009, India
Author    Correspondence author
Maize Genomics and Genetics, 2012, Vol. 3, No. 3   doi: 10.5376/mgg.2012.03.0003
Received: 01 Aug., 2012    Accepted: 07 Aug., 2012    Published: 13 Aug., 2012

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Bhavani et al., 2012, Genetic Imprinting in Maize, Maize Genomics and Genetics, Vol.3, No.3, 13-21 (doi: 10.5376/mgg.2012.03.0003)

Genetic imprinting is the epigenetic phenomenon observed in flowering plants including maize in which, an allele shows differential expression depending on the parent it is inherited. Imprinted genes are modified during gametogenesis so that only paternal or maternal allele is expressed after fertilization. This review focuses on the major processes involved in the regulation of imprinting like DNA methylation, covalent modifications of histones and chromatin remodeling citing examples of maize. This review also summarizes theimprinted genes that have been reported in maize including Fie1, Fie2, Peg1, Nrp1, Mez1, Meg1, Mee1, VIP5 and Yuc8.

Maize; Genetic imprinting; Epigenetics; Histone methylation