title: The development of XO gynogenetic mouse embryos.
abstract: Diploid gynogenetic embryos, which have two sets of maternal and no paternal chromosomes, die at or soon after implantation. Since normal female embryos preferentially inactivate the paternally derived X chromosome in certain extraembryonic membranes, the inviability of diploid gynogenetic embryos might be due to difficulties in achieving an equivalent inactivation of one of their two maternally derived X chromosomes. In order to investigate this possibility, we constructed XO gynogenetic embryos by nuclear transplantation at the 1-cell stage. These XO gynogenones showed the same mortality around the time of implantation as did their XX gynogenetic counterparts. This shows that the lack of a paternally derived autosome set is sufficient to cause gynogenetic inviability at this stage. Autosomal imprinting and its possible relation to X-chromosome imprinting is discussed.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002875:Chromosomes / Q000145:classification; D004171:Diploidy; D004624:Embryo Transfer; D005314:Embryonic and Fetal Development; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D053652:Nuclear Transfer Techniques; D010641:Phenotype; D014960:X Chromosome