Stable inheritance of DNA methylation allows creation of epigenotype maps and the study of epiallele inheritance patterns in the absence of genetic variation.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Differences in DNA methylation can arise as epialleles, which are loci that differ in chromatin state and are inherited over generations. Epialleles offer an additional source of variation that can affect phenotypic diversity beyond changes to nucleotide sequence. Previous research has looked at the rate at which spontaneous epialleles arise but it is currently unknown how they are maintained across generations.

Results

We used two Arabidopsis thaliana mutation accumulation (MA) lines and determined that over 99.998% of the methylated regions in the genome are stably inherited across each generation indicating that spontaneous epialleles are rare. We also developed a novel procedure that determines genotypes for offspring of genetically identical parents using onl

SUBMITTER: Hofmeister BT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5559844 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature