Sharma Santosh Kumar, Yamamoto Maki, Mukai Yasuhiko
Division of Natural Sciences, Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, Osaka Kyoiku University, 4-698-1 Asahigaoka, Kashiwara, Osaka 582-8582, Japan,
Planta. 2015 Feb;241(2):291-301. doi: 10.1007/s00425-014-2233-9. Epub 2014 Dec 25.
Histone proteins and the nucleosomes along with DNA are the essential components of eukaryotic chromatin. Post-translational histone-DNA interactions and modifications eventually offer significant alteration in the chromatin environment and potentially influence diverse fundamental biological processes, some of which are known to be epigenetically inherited and constitute the "epigenetic code". Such chromatin modifications evidently uncover remarkable diversity and biological specificity associated with distinct patterns of covalent histone marks. The past few years have witnessed major breakthroughs in plant biology research by utilizing chromatin modification-specific antibodies through molecular cytogenetic tools to ascertain hallmark signatures of chromatin domains on the chromosomes. Here, we survey current information on chromosomal distribution patterns of chromatin modifications with special emphasis on histone methylation, acetylation, phosphorylation, and centromere-specific histone 3 (CENH3) marks in plants using immuno-FISH as a basic tool. Major available information has been classified under typical and comparative cytogenetic detection of chromatin modifications in plants. Further, spatial distribution of chromatin environment that exists between different cell types such as angiosperm/gymnosperm, monocot/dicot, diploid/polyploids, vegetative/generative cells, as well as different stages, i.e., mitosis versus meiosis has also been discussed in detail. Several challenges and future perspectives of molecular cytogenetics in the grooming field of plant chromatin dynamics have also been addressed.
组蛋白、核小体以及DNA是真核染色质的重要组成部分。翻译后组蛋白与DNA的相互作用及修饰最终会使染色质环境发生显著改变，并可能影响多种基本生物学过程，其中一些过程已知是表观遗传继承的，并构成了“表观遗传密码”。这种染色质修饰显然揭示了与不同共价组蛋白标记模式相关的显著多样性和生物学特异性。在过去几年中，植物生物学研究取得了重大突破，通过分子细胞遗传学工具利用染色质修饰特异性抗体来确定染色体上染色质结构域的标志性特征。在此，我们以免疫荧光原位杂交（immuno-FISH）为基本工具，综述了植物中染色质修饰的染色体分布模式的当前信息，特别强调了组蛋白甲基化、乙酰化、磷酸化以及着丝粒特异性组蛋白3（CENH3）标记。主要的现有信息已归类为植物染色质修饰的典型和比较细胞遗传学检测。此外，还详细讨论了不同细胞类型（如被子植物/裸子植物、单子叶植物/双子叶植物、二倍体/多倍体、营养细胞/生殖细胞）以及不同阶段（即有丝分裂与减数分裂）之间存在的染色质环境的空间分布。还探讨了分子细胞遗传学在植物染色质动力学这一新兴领域中的若干挑战和未来前景。
