Résumé du séminaire donné par Dr. Michael WEBER Institut de Génétique Moléculaire du CNRS, UMR 5535, Montpellier le 5 février 2010 à 14h Amphi J.-P. EBEL - ESBS Titre : Epigenomic mapping reveals distribution and function of DNA methylation in mammals. Résumé : Cytosine methylation is an epigenetic modification essential for mammalian development and perturbed in many pathologies such as cancer. However its functions in the regulation of the genome remain poorly understood. We use genome-wide mapping to identify targets of DNA methylation in mammalian cells, which revealed that DNA methylation is involved in the regulation of genes important for development and pluripotency. Recently, using optimized mapping strategies for low amounts of cells, we showed that DNA methylation plays important roles in establishing stable gene repression during early mouse development in vivo. Future work will aim at understanding the function of DNA methylation in lineage specification and transgenerational effects, as well as the mechanisms that specifically target DNA methylation in the genome.