A NOVEL STRATEGY TO IDENTIFY MATERNAL AND PATERNAL INHERITANCE IN THEMOUSE

A novel strategy for identifying proteins which reveal maternal or pat ernal inheritance in the mouse is presented. Using two-dimensional ele ctrophoresis we investigated protein expression patterns of adult live r and different embryonic and extraembryonic tissue in C57BL/6Crl and in DBA/2Crl mice, as well as in their reciprocal hybrids. We found thr ee groups of protein spots showed maternal or paternal inheritance of quantitative variations. proteins were characterized by N-terminal or internal amino acid sequencing, by determination of the amino acid com position, by glycoprotein staining and RNA expression analysis. The th ree proteins identified were: alpha-enolase, cyclophilin and beta-grou p hemoglobins. The parental effects observed for alpha-enolase and cyc lophilin were found to be due to parent-specific post-translational mo difications of these proteins. For the beta-group hemoglobins our resu lts suggested parental effects on the transcriptional level.