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Epigenetic Signalling During the Life of Seeds

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Epigenetic Memory and Control in Plants

Part of the book series: Signaling and Communication in Plants ((SIGCOMM,volume 18))

Abstract

Seeds are essential for reproduction and dispersal of most plant species and constitute a major human food source. The life of a seed is characterised by two major phase transitions, from embryogenesis to seed maturation and from dry seed to germination. These different stages are characterised by specific transcriptomes and require silencing and activation of diverse sets of genes. In addition, fully mature seeds contain very small nuclei with highly compacted chromatin, which is established during seed maturation. These unique characteristics require extensive epigenetic signalling mechanisms to tightly coordinate the phase transitions and control chromatin accessibility. This chapter gives an overview of our present knowledge of the role of epigenetics in the life of seeds, focussing on the later stages of seed development, dormancy and germination in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Martijn van Zanten and Yongxiu Liu have contributed equally to this chapter.

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Acknowledgements

Our work on epigenetic regulation was supported by VENI grant 863.11.008 of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research and EMBO Long Term Fellowship grant ATLF 700–2010 to MvZ, by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30871334 and No. 31071063) to YL, and by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SO 691/3-1) and the Max Planck Society to WJJS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Molecular Plant Physiology, Institute of Environmental Biology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Martijn van Zanten

  2. Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Physiology, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Yongxiu Liu

  3. Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne, Germany

    Wim J. J. Soppe

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  1. Martijn van Zanten
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  2. Yongxiu Liu
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  3. Wim J. J. Soppe
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Correspondence to Wim J. J. Soppe .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Agriculture and Biotech. of Drylands, Jacob Blaustein Inst. for Desert Res., French Associates Institute for, Sede Boqer Campus, 84990, Israel

    Gideon Grafi

  2. Britannia Building, Department of Molecular Biology, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 69978, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Nir Ohad

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van Zanten, M., Liu, Y., Soppe, W.J.J. (2013). Epigenetic Signalling During the Life of Seeds. In: Grafi, G., Ohad, N. (eds) Epigenetic Memory and Control in Plants. Signaling and Communication in Plants, vol 18. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35227-0_7

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