Special Issue "X-Chromosome Inactivation"

Dear Colleagues,

X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) provides a paradigm for studying the wide-scale chromatin gene-silencing activities and gene dosage compensation of chromosomes, in which one of the two X-chromosomes in female mammals is inactivated to achieve dosage compensation with XY males. Despite being discovered in the 1960s, the pace of discoveries in XCI has increased greatly in the past few decades due to the rise of mammalian pluripotent stem cell embryo models and high-throughput omics technologies. Mechanistic studies have made great advances in dissecting the proteins and chromatin regulators responsible for XCI, yet questions remain about the initiation and choice of which X-chromosome to inactivate, and how the active X-chromosome may be upregulated to balance expression with autosomes. Additionally, as more work is performed in this field beyond mice, key differences between species have emerged, and the functional conversation and divergence of gene dosage compensation mechanisms remains a question of outstanding interest. XCI is also being studied to reactivate healthy copies of silenced genes. The influence of escape from XCI on diseases including cancer and brain disorders is also of key interest. Recent advances in stem cell models, embryo culture, single cell omics, super-resolution microscopy, and genome and epigenome editing provide exciting new tools to address unanswered questions and more.

This Special Issue will be focused on the study of mammalian X-chromosome inactivation, both on its mechanisms and its implications on health and phenotypes. We welcome all articles (both reviews and original research).

Dr. Vincent Pasque
Dr. Bradley Philip Balaton
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• X-chromosome inactivation
• epigenetics
• dosage compensation
• non-coding RNA
• gene silencing
• chromatin
• developmental epigenetics