Monoallelic gene expression

Constitutive monoallelic expression occurs from the same specific allele throughout the whole organism or tissue, as a result of genomic imprinting.

The allelic choice of XCI by individual cells takes place randomly in epiblasts of the preimplantation embryo,[6] which leads to mosaic gene expression of the paternal and maternal X chromosome in female tissues.

Another scenario is also possible due to limited time-window of low-probability initiation, that could lead to high frequencies of cells with single-allele expression.

Studies of fixed aRME require either expansion of monoclonal cultures or lineage-traced in vivo or in vitro cells that are mitotically.

Two most studied cases of allelic exclusion are monoallelic expression of immunoglobulins in B and T cells[14][15][16] and olfactory receptors in sensory neurons.

This phenomenon is often observed in cells of immune function[18][19] Methods of MAE detection are based on the difference between alleles, which can be distinguished either by the sequence of expressed mRNA or protein structure.