Genomic imprinting – an epigenetic regulation of fetal development and loss

Preben Dybdahl Thomsen

Department of Basic Animal and Veterinary Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

author email corresponding author email

from Perinatal Death In Domestic Animals: The 20th Symposium of the Nordic Committee for Veterinary Scientific Cooperation (NKVet)
Reykjavik, Iceland. 26–27 April 2007

Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 2007, 49(Suppl 1):S7doi:10.1186/1751-0147-49-S1-S7


Published:	12 December 2007

First paragraph (this article has no abstract)

The interest in genomic imprinting and epigenetics in animal husbandry has to a large extent been driven by the occurrence of a fetal overgrowth syndrome during assisted reproduction techniques (ART) in ruminants. This overgrowth is known as "large offspring syndrome" or LOS for short (reviewed by [1]). It is characterized by a significant increase in birth weight (8% – 50%), increase in gestational length, breathing problems at birth and an increased frequency of perinatal death. The phenomenon has been reported in both cattle and sheep with incidences up to 100%. It has been observed that a high proportion of serum in the in vitro culture medium can increase the frequency of LOS in sheep. Thus, factors in the serum and culture-environment per se have been suspected to be involved in the ethiology of LOS, but transfer into an asynchronous uterine environment where the gestational age is unmatched between the embryo and the recipient may also contribute.