Huntington's disease (HD) and myotonic dystrophy (DM1) are caused by trinucleotide repeat expansions. The repeats show different instability patterns according to the disorder, cell type and developmental stage. Here we studied the behavior of these repeats in DM1- and HD-derived human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) before and after differentiation, and its relationship to the DNA mismatch repair (MMR). The relatively small (CAG)44 HD expansion was stable in undifferentiated and differentiated HD hESCs. In contrast, the DM1 repeat showed instability from the earliest passages onwards in DM1 hESCs with (CTG)250 or (CTG)1800. Upon differentiation the DM1 repeat was stabilized. MMR genes, including hMSH2, hMSH3 and hMSH6 were assessed at the transcript and protein levels in differentiated cells. The coincidence of differentiation-induced down-regulated MMR expression with reduced instability of the long expanded repeats in hESCs is consistent with a known requirement of MMR proteins for repeat instability in transgenic mice. This is the first demonstration of a correlation between altered repeat instability of an endogenous DM1 locus and natural MMR down-regulation, in contrast to the commonly used murine knock-down systems.

Imprinting is a non-Mendelian form of inheritance where epigenetic modifications control mono-allelic expression depending on the parental origin. Methylation of CpG-dinucleotides at differentially methylated regions (DMRs) is one of the best-studied mechanisms directing expression to one specific parental allele. We studied the methylation patterns of the intergenic (IG)-DMR of DLK1 and GTL2. The methylation marks of the IG-DMR were analysed in human gametes, preimplantation embryos, amniocytes and blood of babies born after intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and blood from adults using a bisulphite sequencing technique. In oocytes, the IG-DMR was mainly unmethylated while in sperm cells a generally methylated pattern was detected. This germ-line specific methylation mark was maintained in the preimplantation embryos until the second cleavage stage. Afterwards in the preimplantation embryos, intermediate methylation patterns (26 -74% methylation) occurred, which may point to relaxation of the imprints. Intermediate patterns were also present in amniocytes, blood from ICSI babies and adults. We hypothesise that in the early cleavage stage embryo a strict differential methylation pattern is needed for the correct imprint establishment of surrounding imprinted genes. Once correct imprinting of the involved gene(s) is acquired, a more relaxed state of the IG-region is allowed.

We have cloned by functional complementation and characterized the yeast ARG7 gene encoding mitochondrial ornithine acetyltransferase, the enzyme catalyzing the fifth step in arginine biosynthesis. While forming ornithine, this enzyme regenerates acetylglutamate, also produced in the first step by the ARG2-encoded acetylglutamate synthase. Interestingly, total deletion of the genomic ARG7 ORF resulted in an arginine-leaky phenotype, indicating that yeast cells possess an alternative route for generating ornithine from acetylornithine.Yeast ornithine acetyltransferase has been purified and characterized previously as a heterodimer of two subunits proposed to derive from a single precursor protein [Liu, Y.-S., Van Heeswijck R., Hoj, P. & Hoogenraad, N. (1995) Eur. J. Biochem. 228, 291Ϫ296] ; those authors further suggested that the internal processing of Arg7p, which is a mitochondrial enzyme, might occur in the matrix, while the leader peptide would be of the non-cleavable-type. The characterization of the gene (a) establishes that Arg7p is indeed encoded by a single gene, (b) demonstrates the existence of a cleaved mitochondrial prepeptide of eight residues, and (c) shows that the predicted internal processing site is unlike the mitochondrial proteolytic peptidase target sequence.Yeast Arg7p shares between 32Ϫ43% identity in pairwise comparisons with the ten analogous bacterial ArgJ enzymes characterized. Among these evolutionarily related enzymes, some but not all appear bifunctional, being able to produce acetylglutamate not only from acetylornithine but also from acetylCoA, thus catalyzing the same reaction as the apparently unrelated acetylglutamate synthase. We have addressed the question of the bifunctionality of the eucaryotic enzyme, showing that overexpressed ARG7 can complement yeast arg2 and Escherichia coli argA mutations (affecting acetylglutamate synthase). Furthermore, Arg7p-linked acetylglutamate synthase activity was measurable in an assay. The yeast enzyme is thus clearly, albeit modestly, bifunctional.As with several bacterial ornithine acetyltransferases, the activity of Arg7p was practically insensitive to arginine but strongly inhibited by ornithine, which behaved as a competitive inhibitor.

The CTG repeat at the 3' untranslated region of the dystrophia myotonica protein kinase (DMPK) gene shows marked intergenerational and somatic instability in patients with myotonic dystrophy (DM1), when the repeat is expanded to more than approximately 55 repeats. Intensive research has yielded some insights into the timing and mechanism of these intergenerational changes: (1) increases in expansion sizes occur during gametogenesis but probably not during meiosis, (2) the marked somatic mosaicism becomes apparent from the 2nd trimester of development onward and increases during adult life, and (3) DNA repair mechanisms are involved. We have performed preimplantation genetic diagnosis for DM1 since 1995, which has given us the unique opportunity to study the expanded CTG repeat in affected embryos and in gametes from affected patients. We were able to demonstrate significant increases in the number of repeats in embryos from female patients with DM1 and in their immature and mature oocytes, whereas, in spermatozoa and embryos from male patients with DM1, smaller increases were detected. These data are in concordance with data on other tissues from adults and fetuses and fill a gap in our knowledge of the behavior of CTG triplet expansions in DM1.