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- Title
An atypical component of RNA-directed DNA methylation machinery has both DNA methylation-dependent and -independent roles in locus-specific transcriptional gene silencing.
- Authors
Liu, Jun; Bai, Ge; Zhang, Cuijun; Chen, Wei; Zhou, Jinxing; Zhang, Suwei; Chen, Qing; Deng, Xin; He, Xin-Jian; Zhu, Jian-Kang
- Abstract
RNA-directed DNA methylation (RdDM) is an important de novo DNA methylation pathway in plants. RdDM mediates the transcriptional silencing of many endogenous genomic loci, most of which are transposon related. A forward genetics screen identified DTF1 (DNA-binding transcription factor 1) as a new component for RdDM in Arabidopsis. Loss-of-function mutations in DTF1 release the transcriptional silencing of RdDM target loci and reduce the accumulation of 24-nt small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) from some of the targets. Interestingly, in the dtf1 mutant plants, the release of transcriptional gene silencing at solo-LTR is accompanied by decreased siRNA accumulation but not by reduced DNA methylation. These results suggest that DTF1 is an atypical component of RdDM and has both DNA methylation-dependent and -independent roles in transcriptional gene silencing. We suggest that besides DNA methylation, siRNAs may cause some other uncharacterized epigenetic modifications that lead to transcriptional gene silencing.
- Subjects
GENETIC research; PLANT genetics; ARABIDOPSIS; DNA methylation; PLANT gene silencing; DNA-binding proteins; PHYSIOLOGY
- Publication
Cell Research, 2011, Vol 21, Issue 12, p1691
- ISSN
1001-0602
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1038/cr.2011.173