[초청강연] Methylome dynamics during seed ripening and germination between two Arabidopsis ecotypes

Methylome dynamics during seed ripening and germination between two
Arabidopsis ecotypes

DNA methylation is an epigenetic modification at the 5’ position of cytosine base
which can alter DNA accessibility and chromatin structure. DNA methylation is
known to regulate gene expression, gene imprinting as well as transposon silencing
and genome integrity. While cytosine methylation occurs mainly at CG symmetric site
in mammals, plants have more comprehensive system in that methylation occurs not
only at CG site, but also at CHG and CHH where H is C, A, or T. Genome-wide DNA
methylation during Arabidopsis embryogenesis and germination are previously
shown in separate studies. While the global levels of CG and CHG methylation are
relatively static, CHH methylation shows extensive gain and loss during seed
development and germination, respectively, especially in transposable elements
(TE). However, resetting of cytosine methylation has been shown mainly in
Arabidopsis Columbia (Col) reference ecotype, thereby reconfiguration of
methylation dynamics in different ecotype strains are largely unknown. Here, we will
introduce comparative pairwise analyses of methylome dynamics between Col-0 and
Cape Verde Island (Cvi)-0 accession, known to have the lowest CG methylation level
in gene body among over 1000 Arabidopsis accessions, during seed maturation and
germination processes. Evolutionary insights into the ecotype-specific regions as
well as conserved regions between two accessions will be further discussed.