Variability of genomic imprinting in human disease

Genomic imprinting is the differential expression of genetic material depending on the parent from which it is transmitted. It is involved in the pathogenesis of many diseases, especially those involved in development, growth abnormalities and cancer. We examined the extent of and the variability of genomic imprinting amongst individuals in three human diseases, Wilms' tumour, Type 1 diabetes and Silver-Russell syndrome.Wilms' tumour (WT) is a renal embryonal cancer associated with overexpression of the insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2). IGF2 is directed to the lysosomes for degradation by the mannose-6-phosphate/insulin-like growth factor two receptor (M6P/IGF2R) encoded by the IGF2R gene, a known tumour suppressor gene on 6826. IGF2R is imprinted in the mouse, with exclusive maternal expression. In humans, however, IGF2R imprinting is a polymorphic phenomenon only being found in a small subset of people. We present results suggesting that IGF2R imprinting provides the first "hit" in IGF2R inactivation in WT, and show the presence of a second "hit" in the form of deletions detectable as loss of heterozygosity.Another disease investigated in this report is Type 1 diabetes (TID), an autoimmune, polygenic disease. Of the several T1D loci, IDDM8 on 6q, has been found to be subject to parent-of-origin effects and encompasses IGF2R. M6P/IGF2R is involved in immune system regulation. In this study we show an association between TID and IGF2R that is confined to maternally inherited alleles. Our results strongly suggest that IGF2R is a TID susceptibility gene and may be universally imprinted at some tissue or developmental stage not yet studied.A third disease displaying both tissue-specific and isoform-specific imprinting is Silver-Russell syndrome (SRS), a growth disorder associated with double dose of a maternally expressed gene within 7p11.2--p13, a region in which the imprinted GRB10 gene was a prime candidate. We studied the complex tissue and isoform-dependence of GRB10 imprinting and demonstrated absence of imprinting in growth plate cartilage, the tissue most directly involved in linear growth thus eliminating GRB10 as the gene responsible for SRS.It is evident that genomic imprinting plays a prominent role in various diseases. Imprinted genes can be expressed in a tissue-specific, isoform-specific or a temporally regulated manner. In addition, there is a wide variability of imprinting between individuals