National Engineering Research Center of Tree Breeding and Ecological Restoration, Key Laboratory of Genetics and Breeding in Forest Trees and Ornamental Plants, Ministry of Education, The Tree and Ornamental Plant Breeding and Biotechnology Laboratory of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, College of Biological Sciences and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, PR China.
College of Material Science and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, P. R. China.
Nat Commun. 2023 Apr 7;14(1):1947. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-37684-6.
Epigenetics has been revealed to play a crucial role in the long-term memory in plants. However, little is known about whether the epigenetic modifications occur with age progressively in conifers. Here, we present the single-base resolution DNA methylation landscapes of the 25-gigabase Chinese pine (Pinus tabuliformis) genome at different ages. The result shows that DNA methylation is closely coupled with the regulation of gene transcription. The age-dependent methylation profile with a linearly increasing trend is the most significant pattern of DMRs between ages. Two segments at the five-prime end of the first ultra-long intron in DAL1, a conservative age biomarker in conifers, shows a gradual decline of CHG methylation as the age increased, which is highly correlated with its expression profile. Similar high correlation is also observed in nine other age marker genes. Our results suggest that DNA methylation serves as an important epigenetic signature of developmental age in conifers.
表观遗传学被揭示在植物的长期记忆中起着关键作用。然而，关于是否随着年龄的增长，在针叶树中逐渐发生表观遗传修饰知之甚少。在这里，我们展示了不同年龄的 250 亿碱基对中国松树（Pinus tabuliformis）基因组的单碱基分辨率 DNA 甲基化图谱。结果表明，DNA 甲基化与基因转录的调控密切相关。年龄相关的甲基化图谱呈线性增加趋势，是年龄间 DMR 最显著的模式。DAL1 中第一个超长内含子 5'端的两个片段，作为针叶树中的保守年龄生物标志物，随着年龄的增长，CHG 甲基化逐渐下降，与表达谱高度相关。其他九个年龄标记基因也观察到类似的高度相关性。我们的研究结果表明，DNA 甲基化是针叶树发育年龄的一个重要表观遗传特征。
