In:
Plant, Cell & Environment, Wiley, Vol. 39, No. 1 ( 2016-01), p. 174-184
Abstract:
In maize ( Zea mays ), as well as in other crops, transposable elements (TEs) constitute a great proportion of the genome. Chromatin modifications play a vital role in establishing transposon silencing and perpetuating the acquired repressive state. Nucleosomes associated with TEs are enriched for dimethylation of histone H3 at lysine 9 and 27 (H3K9me2 and H3K27me2, respectively), signals of repressive chromatin. Here, we describe a chromatin protein, ZmMBD101, involved in the regulation of Mutator ( Mu ) genes in maize. ZmMBD101 is localized to the nucleus and contains a methyl‐CpG‐binding domain (MBD) and a zinc finger CW (CW) domain. Transgenic lines with reduced levels of ZmMBD101 transcript present enhanced induction of Mu genes when plants are irradiated with UV‐B. Chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis with H3K9me2 and H3K27me2 antibodies indicated that ZmMBD101 is required to maintain the levels of these histone repressive marks at Mu terminal inverted repeats (TIRs) under UV‐B conditions. Although Mutator inactivity is associated with DNA methylation, cytosine methylation at Mu TIRs is not affected in ZmMBD101 deficient plants. Several plant proteins are predicted to share the simple CW‐MBD domain architecture present in ZmMBD101. We hypothesize that plant CW‐MBD proteins may also function to protect plant genomes from deleterious transposition.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0140-7791
,
1365-3040
Language:
English
Publisher:
Wiley
Publication Date:
2016
detail.hit.zdb_id:
391893-2
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2020843-1
SSG:
12
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