Journal
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
Volume 5, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2014.00780
Keywords
epigenetics; DNA methylation; histone modification; imprinting; genomics; seed development; maize endosperm; Arabidopsis endosperm
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [IOS-1031416, MCB-1412218]
- National Institute of Food and Agriculture [2010-04228, 2011-67013-30032]
- Vasil-Monsanto Endowment
- Div Of Molecular and Cellular Bioscience
- Direct For Biological Sciences [1412218] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Normal plant development requires epigenetic regulation to enforce changes in developmental fate. Genomic imprinting is a type of epigenetic regulation in which identical alleles of genes are expressed in a parent-of-origin dependent manner. Deep sequencing of transcriptomes has identified hundreds of imprinted genes with scarce evidence for the developmental importance of individual imprinted loci. Imprinting is regulated through global DNA demethylation in the central cell prior to fertilization and directed repression of individual loci with the Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2). There is significant evidence for transposable elements and repeat sequences near genes acting as ciselements to determine imprinting status of a gene, implying that imprinted gene expression patterns may evolve randomly and at high frequency. Detailed genetic analysis of a few imprinted loci suggests an imprinted pattern of gene expression is often dispensable for seed development. Few genes show conserved imprinted expression within or between plant species. These data are not fully explained by current models for the evolution of imprinting in plant seeds. We suggest that imprinting may have evolved to provide a mechanism for rapid neofunctionalization of genes during seed development to increase phenotypic diversity of seeds.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available