Promoter DNA Hypermethylation and Gene Repression in Undifferentiated Arabidopsis Cells

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Date

2008-10-01

Authors

Berdasco, María
Alcázar, Rubén
García-Ortiz, María Victoria
Ballestar, Esteban
Fernández, Agustín F.
Roldán-Arjona, Teresa
Tiburcio, Antonio F.
Altabella, Teresa
Buisine, Nicolas
Quesneville, Hadi

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Public Library of Science

Abstract

Maintaining and acquiring the pluripotent cell state in plants is critical to tissue regeneration and vegetative multiplication. Histone-based epigenetic mechanisms are important for regulating this undifferentiated state. Here we report the use of genetic and pharmacological experimental approaches to show that Arabidopsis cell suspensions and calluses specifically repress some genes as a result of promoter DNA hypermethylation. We found that promoters of the MAPK12, GSTU10 and BXL1 genes become hypermethylated in callus cells and that hypermethylation also affects the TTG1, GSTF5, SUVH8, fimbrin and CCD7 genes in cell suspensions. Promoter hypermethylation in undifferentiated cells was associated with histone hypoacetylation and primarily occurred at CpG sites. Accordingly, we found that the process specifically depends on MET1 and DRM2 methyltransferases, as demonstrated with DNA methyltransferase mutants. Our results suggest that promoter DNA methylation may be another important epigenetic mechanism for the establishment and/or maintenance of the undifferentiated state in plant cells.

Department

Cellular and Molecular Biology

Description

María Berdasco is with the Spanish National Cancer Centre, University of Oviedo, and Catalan Institute of Oncology; Rubén Alcázar is with University of Barcelona; María Victoria García-Ortiz is with University of Córdoba; Esteban Ballestar is with the Spanish National Cancer Centre; Agustín F. Fernández is with the Spanish National Cancer Centre; Teresa Roldán-Arjona is with University of Córdoba; Antonio F. Tiburcio is with University of Barcelona; Teresa Altabella is with University of Barcelona; Nicolas Buisine is with CNRS; Hadi Quesneville is with INRA; Antoine Baudry is with INRA; Loïc Lepiniec is with INRA; Miguel Alaminos is with University of Granada; Roberto Rodríguez is with University of Oviedo; Alan Lloyd is with UT Austin; Vincent Colot is with CNRS; Judith Bender is with Johns Hopkins University; María Jesús Canal is with University of Oviedo; Manel Esteller is with the Spanish National Cancer Centre and Catalan Institute of Oncology; Mario F. Fraga is with the Spanish National Cancer Centre and Spanish National Centre for Biotechnology.

Keywords

Arabidopsis thaliana, Cell differentiation, DNA, DNA methylation, DNA sequence analysis, Gene expression, Methylation, Suspensions

LCSH Subject Headings

Citation

Berdasco M, Alcázar R, García-Ortiz MV, Ballestar E, Fernández AF, et al. (2008) Promoter DNA Hypermethylation and Gene Repression in Undifferentiated Arabidopsis Cells. PLoS ONE 3(10): e3306. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003306

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/2152/20461

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