The Agouti mouse: a biosensor for environmental epigenomics studies investigating the developmental origins of health and disease.

vy mouseDNA methylationdietenvironmental epigenomicsepigenetics • parity The field of epigenetics continues to grow exponentially, doubling approximately every 2 to 3 years (1). Concomitant with this growth is an increased interest in using the agouti viable yellow (A vy ) isogenic mouse for envi- ronmental epigenomic studies investigating the developmental origins of health and dis- ease. The Agouti gene in this mouse model is metastable because of a retroviral intracister- nal A particle (IAP) insertion upstream of the Agouti transcription start site (1,2). Metastable genes are highly variable in their expression. This results from stochastic allelic changes in the epigenome rather than mutations in the genome.

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