IC4R002-Epigenomic-2010-20937895

Project Title

• Local DNA hypomethylation activates genes in rice endosperm

The Background of This Project

• In eukaryotic nuclei, DNA associates with proteins to form chro- matin. It first wraps around core histones to form nucleosomes that, in turn, are often organized into higher-ordered structures. Chromatin structure plays an essential role in genome organization, transcriptional activity, and memory of developmental state (Bernstein et al., 2002). While all cells in an individual have the same nuclear genome, each cell type may harbor a distinct epigenome, which relies on heritable, often reversible, DNA methylation at cytosines and histone modifications (Richards, 1997).
• Rice (Oryza sativa) is an important model species for cereals and other monocotyledonous plants. Two prominent features of most rice chromosomes are their clear organization into hetero- chromatic and euchromatic regions and the large amount of pericentromeric heterochromatin. For example, cytological studies using 49,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole staining indicate that approximately half of chromosomes 4 and 10 is the more densely stained heterochromatin, including their entire short arms and the proximal portions of their long arms (Cheng et al., 2001; Yan and Jiang, 2007). Global repression of transcription in rice heterochromatin has been observed, but the molecular basis is unknown (Jiao et al., 2005; Li et al., 2006). Completion of the rice genome sequence (International Rice Genome Sequencing Project, 2005) provides an unprecedented opportunity to examine epigenetic modifications comprehensively and correlate them with gene expression.
• In this project, the researchers describe high-resolution mapping of DNA methyla- tion and H3K4me2 and H3K4me3 patterns of rice (spp japonica cv Nipponbare) chromosomes 4 and 10 using tiling-path micro- arrays. We compare two developmental states: undifferentiated suspension-cultured cells and young light-grown shoots. The large heterochromatic regions on these chromosomes allow a genome-scale investigation of DNA methylation and histone modifications in heterochromatin. The completely sequenced rice centromeres of chromosomes 4 and 8 were also included in this analysis (Nagaki et al., 2004; Zhang et al., 2004). This indepth, genome-scale analysis provides unprecedented insights into the epigenetic signatures of the rice genome.

Labs working on this Project

• Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720

Corresponding Author

• Daniel Zilberman (E-mail: danielz@berkeley.edu.)