Notes on the role of dynamic DNA methylation in mammalian development

It has been nearly 40 y since it was suggested that genomic methylation patterns could be transmitted via maintenance methylation during S phase and might play a role in the dynamic regulation of gene expression during development [Holliday R, Pugh JE (1975) Science 187(4173):226-232; Riggs AD (1975) Cytogenet Cell Genet 14(1):9-25]. This revolutionary proposal was justified by "... our almost complete ignorance of the mechanism for the...