Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Gregor Mendel Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1030 Vienna, Austria.
Science. 2012 Sep 14;337(6100):1360-1364. doi: 10.1126/science.1224839.
The Arabidopsis thaliana central cell, the companion cell of the egg, undergoes DNA demethylation before fertilization, but the targeting preferences, mechanism, and biological significance of this process remain unclear. Here, we show that active DNA demethylation mediated by the DEMETER DNA glycosylase accounts for all of the demethylation in the central cell and preferentially targets small, AT-rich, and nucleosome-depleted euchromatic transposable elements. The vegetative cell, the companion cell of sperm, also undergoes DEMETER-dependent demethylation of similar sequences, and lack of DEMETER in vegetative cells causes reduced small RNA-directed DNA methylation of transposons in sperm. Our results demonstrate that demethylation in companion cells reinforces transposon methylation in plant gametes and likely contributes to stable silencing of transposable elements across generations.
拟南芥中央细胞是卵细胞的伴细胞,在受精前经历 DNA 去甲基化,但这一过程的靶向偏好、机制和生物学意义尚不清楚。在这里,我们表明 DEMETER DNA 糖苷酶介导的活性 DNA 去甲基化负责中央细胞中的所有去甲基化,并且优先靶向小的、富含 AT 和核小体缺失的常染色质转座元件。营养细胞是精子的伴细胞,也经历了 DEMETER 依赖性的类似序列去甲基化,而营养细胞中缺乏 DEMETER 会导致精子中转座子的小 RNA 指导的 DNA 甲基化减少。我们的结果表明,伴细胞中的去甲基化加强了植物配子中转座子的甲基化,并可能有助于跨代稳定沉默转座元件。