1. Chromosomes and Gene Expression

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

  1. Hikaru Sato
  2. Juan Santos-González
  3. Claudia Köhler  Is a corresponding author
  1. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.64593
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  1. Hikaru Sato
  2. Juan Santos-González
  3. Claudia Köhler
(2021)
Combinations of maternal-specific repressive epigenetic marks in the endosperm control seed dormancy
eLife 10:e64593.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.64593
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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
The following previously published data sets were used

Article and author information

Author details

  1. 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.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-7628-0414

  2. 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.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-8712-9776

  3. 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.
    ORCID icon "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

© 2021, Sato 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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  1. Hikaru Sato
  2. Juan Santos-González
  3. Claudia Köhler
(2021)
Combinations of maternal-specific repressive epigenetic marks in the endosperm control seed dormancy
eLife 10:e64593.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.64593

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.64593

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