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. 2003 Jan 31;299(5607):716-9.
doi: 10.1126/science.1079695. Epub 2003 Jan 9.

ARGONAUTE4 control of locus-specific siRNA accumulation and DNA and histone methylation

Daniel Zilberman  1 , Xiaofeng Cao, Steven E Jacobsen
Affiliations

ARGONAUTE4 control of locus-specific siRNA accumulation and DNA and histone methylation

Daniel Zilberman et al. Science. .

Abstract

Proteins of the ARGONAUTE family are important in diverse posttranscriptional RNA-mediated gene-silencing systems as well as in transcriptional gene silencing in Drosophila and fission yeast and in programmed DNA elimination in Tetrahymena. We cloned ARGONAUTE4 (AGO4) from a screen for mutants that suppress silencing of the Arabidopsis SUPERMAN (SUP) gene. The ago4-1 mutant reactivated silent SUP alleles and decreased CpNpG and asymmetric DNA methylation as well as histone H3 lysine-9 methylation. In addition, ago4-1 blocked histone and DNA methylation and the accumulation of 25-nucleotide small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) that correspond to the retroelement AtSN1. These results suggest that AGO4 and long siRNAs direct chromatin modifications, including histone methylation and non-CpG DNA methylation.

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