Additive inheritance of histone modifications in Arabidopsis thaliana intra‐specific hybrids

Abstract

SUMMARYPlant genomes are earmarked with defined patterns of chromatin marks. Little is known about the stability of these epigenomes when related, but distinct genomes are brought together by intra-species hybridization. Arabidopsis thaliana accessions and their reciprocal hybrids were used as a model system to investigate the dynamics of histone modification patterns. The genome-wide distribution of histone modifications H3K4me2 and H3K27me3 in the inbred parental accessions Col-0, C24 and Cvi and their hybrid offspring was compared by chromatin immunoprecipitation in combination with genome tiling array hybridization. The analysis revealed that, in addition to DNA sequence polymorphisms, chromatin modification variations exist among accessions of A. thaliana. The range of these variations was higher for H3K27me3 (typically a repressive mark) than for H3K4me2 (typically an active mark). H3K4me2 and H3K27me3 were rather stable in response to intra-species hybridization, with mainly additive inheritance in hybrid offspring. In conclusion, intra-species hybridization does not result in gross changes to chromatin modifications.

Comparative Analysis of Genome-Wide Chromosomal Histone Modification Patterns in Maize Cultivars and Their Wild Relatives

“…However, recent advances have drawn attention to epigenetic variation, which can also lead to phenotypic diversity and can be heritable across generations [39]. It was reported that substantial DNA methylation variation exists between different A. thaliana accessions [40], whereas H3K4me2 and H3K27me3 distribution patterns are highly conserved and remain largely unchanged in their F1 hybrids [41]. DNA methylation variation was also found in two rice subspecies ( Oryza sativa japonica and O. sativa indica ) and their reciprocal hybrids, but H3K4me3 and H3K27me3 levels were not found to be drastically changed [42].…”

Development of primer sets that can verify the enrichment of histone modifications, and their application to examining vernalization-mediated chromatin changes in <i>Brassica rapa</i> L.

“…All five genes had H3K27me3, and four of the five were not expressed in leaves. H3K27me3 distribution patterns are highly conserved between natural accessions in A. thaliana (Moghaddam et al, 2011;Deng et al, 2013;Dong et al, 2013), suggesting that H3K27me3-targeted genes are conserved between A. thaliana and B. rapa.…”

Genomic Distribution of Maize Facultative Heterochromatin Marked by Trimethylation of H3K27

“…Few studies have compared the H3K27me3 profiles for multiple different genotypes of the same species. Some differences were found between Arabidopsis ecotypes, and those primarily exhibit additive inheritance in F1 offspring (Moghaddam et al, 2011). When variation in H3K27me3 was assessed in two different rice subspecies, a small number of examples of genes with differences in H3K27me3 levels were found, while variation in DNA methylation levels was much more common between the two subspecies (He et al, 2010).…”