Century-scale methylome stability in a recently diverged Arabidopsis thaliana lineage.

ABSTRACT: There has been much excitement about the possibility that exposure to specific environments can induce an ecological memory in the form of whole-sale, genome-wide epigenetic changes that are maintained over many generations. In the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, numerous heritable DNA methylation differences have been identified in greenhouse-grown isogenic lines, but it remains unknown how natural, highly variable environments affect the rate and spectrum of such changes. Here we present detailed methylome analyses in a geographically dispersed A. thaliana population that constitutes a collection of near-isogenic lines, diverged for at least a century from a common ancestor. Methylome variation largely reflected genetic distance, and was in many aspects similar to that of lines raised

SUBMITTER: Hagmann J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4287485 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature