期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2003
卷号：100
期号：15
页码：8823-8827
DOI：10.1073/pnas.1432939100
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：In mammals and plants, formation of heterochromatin is associated with hypermethylation of DNA at CpG sites and histone H3 methylation at lysine 9. Previous studies have revealed that maintenance of DNA methylation in Neurospora and Arabidopsis requires histone H3 methylation. A feedback loop from DNA methylation to histone methylation, however, is less understood. Its recent examination in Arabidopsis with a partial loss of function in DNA methyltransferase 1 (responsible for maintenance of CpG methylation) yielded conflicting results. Here we report that complete removal of CpG methylation in an Arabidopsis mutant null for DNA maintenance methyltransferase results in a clear loss of histone H3 methylation at lysine 9 in heterochromatin and also at heterochromatic loci that remain transcriptionally silent. Surprisingly, these dramatic alterations are not reflected in heterochromatin relaxation.
