Complex Relationships between Chromatin Accessibility, Sequence Divergence, and Gene Expression in Arabidopsis thaliana.

ABSTRACT: Variation in regulatory DNA is thought to drive phenotypic variation, evolution, and disease. Prior studies of regulatory DNA and transcription factors across animal species highlighted a fundamental conundrum: Transcription factor binding domains and cognate binding sites are conserved, while regulatory DNA sequences are not. It remains unclear how conserved transcription factors and dynamic regulatory sites produce conserved expression patterns across species. Here, we explore regulatory DNA variation and its functional consequences within Arabidopsis thaliana, using chromatin accessibility to delineate regulatory DNA genome-wide. Unlike in previous cross-species comparisons, the positional homology of regulatory DNA is maintained among A. thaliana ecotypes and less nucleotide divergence

SUBMITTER: Alexandre CM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5889003 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature