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PMID: 15489532 Published · ppublish English Comparative Study Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Suppression of histone H1 genes in Arabidopsis results in heritable developmental defects and stochastic changes in DNA methylation.

Genetics ·Vol. 169 ·No. 2 ·2005-02-00 ·Pages 997-1008

Wierzbicki AT, Jerzmanowski A

Abstract

Histone H1 is an abundant component of eukaryotic chromatin that is thought to stabilize higher-order chromatin structures. However, the complete knock-out of H1 genes in several lower eukaryotes has no discernible effect on their appearance or viability. In higher eukaryotes, the presence of many mutually compensating isoforms of this protein has made assessment of the global function of H1 more difficult. We have used double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) silencing to suppress all the H1 genes of Arabidopsis thaliana. Plants with a >90% reduction in H1 expression exhibited a spectrum of aberrant developmental phenotypes, some of them resembling those observed in DNA hypomethylation mutants. In subsequent generations these defects segregated independently of the anti-H1 dsRNA construct. Downregulation of H1 genes did not cause substantial genome-wide DNA hypo- or hypermethylation. However, it was correlated with minor but statistically significant changes in the methylation patterns of repetitive and single-copy sequences, occurring in a stochastic manner. These findings reveal an important and previously unrecognized link between linker histones and specific patterns of DNA methylation.

MeSH Terms
Arabidopsis/genetics,growth & development,metabolism Chromosome Mapping DNA Methylation DNA, Plant/metabolism Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental Gene Expression Regulation, Plant Gene Silencing Genes, Plant Histones/chemistry,deficiency,genetics,metabolism Mutation Phylogeny Plants, Genetically Modified Promoter Regions, Genetic Protein Structure, Tertiary Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction Transformation, Genetic
Chemicals
DNA, Plant Histones
Authors & Affiliations
2 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Wierzbicki Andrzej T
Laboratory of Plant Molecular Biology, Warsaw University, 02-106 Warsaw, Poland.
Jerzmanowski Andrzej
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Article Info
Journal
Genetics
Abbr.
Genetics
ISSN
0016-6731
DOI
10.1534/genetics.104.031997
Published
2005-02-00
Epub
2004-00-16
Pages
997-1008
Language
English
Region
United States
NLM ID
0374636
PMCID
PMC1449090
Subset
IM
External Links
PubMed source DOI: 10.1534/genetics.104.031997 PMC Full Text View journal details
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