Natural selection for maintaining epigenetic status in plants

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K18585
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Evolutionary biology
• Research Institution: The Graduate University for Advanced Studies
• Principal Investigator: Shohei Takuno 総合研究大学院大学, 先導科学研究科, 助教(特定有期雇用) (20547294)
• Research Collaborator: Gaut Brandon S. University of California, Irvine, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Professor
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: ゲノム進化 / エピジェネティクス

Outline of Final Research Achievements

DNA methylation is an important epigenetic modification that affects both chromatin packing and transcription. DNA methylation occurs in three sequence contexts, that is, CG, CHG, and CHH (where H is A, C, or T) in plants. All three contexts are methylated within repetitive elements. The major role of DNA methylation within repetitive elements is to silence transcription and functions as a host defense against transposons. On the other hand, only the CG context is mainly methylated within coding regions in plants that is called gene body methylation. Gene body methylation is considered a byproduct of the process of removing heterochromatic marks within active genes; gene body methylation might not be functional. However, I found that gene body methylation was observed in a biased subset of genes, tended to be conserved between plant orthologs, and the drastic changes of gene body methylation significantly affected expression levels.

Free Research Field

進化エピジェネティクス