A new role for histone demethylases in the maintenance of plant genome integrity
- University of Warwick, United Kingdom
- Institute of Plant Sciences Paris Saclay, France
- Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Germany
- The Ohio State University, United States
- Nagoya University, Japan
- Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, United States
- Université Paris Saclay, France
Abstract
Histone modifications deposited by the Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) play a critical role in the control of growth, development, and adaptation to environmental fluctuations of most multicellular eukaryotes. The catalytic activity of PRC2 is counteracted by Jumonji-type (JMJ) histone demethylases, which shapes the genomic distribution of H3K27me3. Here, we show that two JMJ histone demethylases in Arabidopsis, EARLY FLOWERING 6 (ELF6) and RELATIVE OF EARLY FLOWERING 6 (REF6), play distinct roles in H3K27me3 and H3K27me1 homeostasis. We show that failure to reset these chromatin marks during sexual reproduction results in the transgenerational inheritance of histone marks, which cause a loss of DNA methylation at heterochromatic loci and transposon activation. Thus, Jumonji-type histone demethylases play a dual role in plants by helping to maintain transcriptional states through development and safeguard genome integrity during sexual reproduction.
Data availability
Sequence data (BS-seq, RNA-seq and ChiP-seq) that support the findings of this study have been deposited at the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) under the accession code PRJEB36508.
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Arabidopsis H3K27 demethylases contribute to genomic integrityEuropean Nucleotide Archive, PRJEB36508.
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DNA methylation prevents REF6 binding in ArabidopsisNCBI Gene Expression Omnibus, GSE111830.
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DDM1 and RdDM are the major regulators of transposon DNA methylation in ArabidopsisNCBI Gene Expression Omnibus, GSE41302.
Article and author information
Author details
Deborah Manza-Mianza
Jose Gutierrez-Marcos
Funding
European Commission (AUREATE)
- Jose Gutierrez-Marcos
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/L003023/1,BB/N005279/1,BB/N00194X/1 and BB/P02601X/1)
- Jose Gutierrez-Marcos
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JP19H05676)
- Minako Ueda
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (EpiGen)
- Moussa Benhamed
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2020, Antunez-Sanchez et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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A new role for histone demethylases in the maintenance of plant genome integrity
eLife 9:e58533.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.58533
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