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Review
. 2011 Apr;14(2):179-86.
doi: 10.1016/j.pbi.2010.12.002. Epub 2011 Jan 11.

Epigenetic modifications in plants: an evolutionary perspective

Suhua Feng  1 , Steven E Jacobsen
Affiliations
Review

Epigenetic modifications in plants: an evolutionary perspective

Suhua Feng et al. Curr Opin Plant Biol. 2011 Apr.

Abstract

Plant genomes are modified by an array of epigenetic marks that help regulate plant growth and reproduction. Although plants share many epigenetic features with animals and fungi, some epigenetic marks are unique to plants. In different organisms, the same epigenetic mark can play different roles and/or similar functions can be carried out by different epigenetic marks. Furthermore, while the enzymatic systems responsible for generating or eliminating epigenetic marks are often conserved, there are also cases where they are quite divergent between plants and other organisms. DNA methylation and methylation of histone tails on the lysine 4, 9, and 27 positions are among the best characterized epigenetic marks in both plants and animals. Recent studies have greatly enhanced our knowledge about the pattern of these marks in various genomes and provided insights into how they are established and maintained and how they function. This review focuses on the conservation and divergence of the pathways that mediate these four types of epigenetic marks.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic representation of the distribution of selected epigenetic marks in the Arabidopsis genome The genome of Arabidopsis can be divided into two portions, pericentromeric heterochromatin and the euchromatic chromosome arms. Pericentromeric heterochromatin containing abundant transposons and silenced genes are characterized by large regions of high levels of H3K9me2 and DNA methylation in all three sequence contexts. Transposons found in the euchromatin also contain H3K9me2 and three types of DNA methylation, but are present as small patches of heterochromatin limited to the length of the transposon. Some genes in euchromatin, which do not have DNA methylation, are repressed by H3K27me3. Expressed genes often have methylated H3K4, with tri-methylation and di-methylation in the promoter and 5′-end and mono-methylation in the transcribed region. Genes with modest levels of transcription tend to have gene body CG methylation. Histone methylations are illustrated on the top and DNA methylations on the bottom. m: methylated.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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    1. Law JA, Jacobsen SE. Establishing, maintaining and modifying DNA methylation patterns in plants and animals. Nat Rev Genet. 2010;11:204–220. This article reviews the mechanisms of DNA methylation in plants and animals. It covers the current knowledge on many aspects of DNA methylation, such as DNA methyltransferases, de novo methylation, maintenance methylation, methylation in reproductive cells, and DNA demethylation.

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    1. Johnson L, Mollah S, Garcia BA, Muratore TL, Shabanowitz J, Hunt DF, Jacobsen SE. Mass spectrometry analysis of Arabidopsis histone H3 reveals distinct combinations of post-translational modifications. Nucleic Acids Res. 2004;32:6511–6518. - PMC - PubMed

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