State Key Laboratory of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, 92037, USA.
Nat Commun. 2022 Jan 11;13(1):244. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-27690-x.
DNA methylation shapes the epigenetic landscape of the genome, plays critical roles in regulating gene expression, and ensures transposon silencing. As is evidenced by the numerous defects associated with aberrant DNA methylation landscapes, establishing proper tissue-specific methylation patterns is critical. Yet, how such differences arise remains a largely open question in both plants and animals. Here we demonstrate that CLASSY1-4 (CLSY1-4), four locus-specific regulators of DNA methylation, also control tissue-specific methylation patterns, with the most striking pattern observed in ovules where CLSY3 and CLSY4 control DNA methylation at loci with a highly conserved DNA motif. On a more global scale, we demonstrate that specific clsy mutants are sufficient to shift the epigenetic landscape between tissues. Together, these findings reveal substantial epigenetic diversity between tissues and assign these changes to specific CLSY proteins, elucidating how locus-specific targeting combined with tissue-specific expression enables the CLSYs to generate epigenetic diversity during plant development.
DNA 甲基化塑造了基因组的表观遗传景观，在调节基因表达和确保转座子沉默方面发挥着关键作用。大量与异常 DNA 甲基化景观相关的缺陷表明，建立适当的组织特异性甲基化模式至关重要。然而，这种差异是如何产生的，在植物和动物中仍然是一个很大的悬而未决的问题。在这里，我们证明了 CLASSY1-4（CLSY1-4），四个局部位点 DNA 甲基化的调节因子，也控制组织特异性的甲基化模式，在胚珠中观察到最显著的模式，CLSY3 和 CLSY4 在具有高度保守 DNA 基序的位点控制 DNA 甲基化。在更广泛的范围内，我们证明了特定的 clsy 突变体足以在组织之间转移表观遗传景观。总之，这些发现揭示了组织之间存在大量的表观遗传多样性，并将这些变化归因于特定的 CLSY 蛋白，阐明了局部位点靶向与组织特异性表达相结合如何使 CLSY 在植物发育过程中产生表观遗传多样性。
