Combinations of maternal-specific repressive epigenetic marks in the endosperm control seed dormancy

Abstract
Data availability
Article and author information
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Abstract

Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2)-mediated trimethylation of histone H3 on lysine 27 (H3K27me3) and methylation of histone 3 on lysine 9 (H3K9me) are two repressive epigenetic modifications that are typically localized in distinct regions of the genome. For reasons unknown, however, they co-occur in some organisms and special tissue types. In this study, we show that maternal alleles marked by H3K27me3 in the Arabidopsis endosperm were targeted by the H3K27me3 demethylase REF6 and became activated during germination. In contrast, maternal alleles marked by H3K27me3, H3K9me2, and CHG methylation (CHGm) are likely to be protected from REF6 targeting and remained silenced. Our study unveils that combinations of different repressive epigenetic modifications time a key adaptive trait by modulating access of REF6.

Data availability

All data generated in this study were deposited to the Gene Expression Omnibus and are available under the accession number GSE158907.

The following data sets were generated

1. Köhler C
2. et al
(2021) Combinations of maternal-specific repressive epigenetic marks in the endosperm control seed dormancy
NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus, GSE158907.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE158907

The following previously published data sets were used

(2016) Parental epigenetic asymmetry of PRC2-mediated histone modifications in the Arabidopsis endosperm
NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus.

https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/64593/GSE66585
1. Park K
2. Kim MY
3. Vickers M
4. Park
(2016) DNA demethylation is initiated in the central cells of Arabidopsis and rice
NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus.

https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/64593/GSE89789
(2013) Arabidopsis thaliana seed germination timecourse
NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus.

https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/64593/GSE41212
1. Ibarra CA
2. Feng X
3. Schoft VK
4. Hsieh TF
5. Uzawa R
6. Rodrigues JA
7. Zemach A
8. Chumak N
9. Machlicova A
10. Nishimura T
11. Rojas D
12. Fischer RL
13. Tamaru H
14. Zilberman D
(2012) Active DNA demethylation in plant companion cells reinforces transposon methylation in gametes
NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus.

https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/64593/GSE38935

Article and author information

Author details

Hikaru Sato

Department of Plant Biology, Uppsala BioCenter, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-7628-0414
Juan Santos-González

Department of Plant Biology, Uppsala BioCenter, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-8712-9776
Claudia Köhler

Department of Plant Biology, Uppsala BioCenter, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden

For correspondence
claudia.kohler@slu.se

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-2619-4857

Funding

Vetenskapsrådet (2017-04119)

Claudia Köhler

Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse (2018-0206)

Claudia Köhler

Goran Gustafsson Foundation for Research in Natural Sciences and Medicine

Claudia Köhler

The Human Frontier Science Program (LT000162/2018-L)

Hikaru Sato

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

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.