Abstract
DNA methylation plays a critical role in the modulation of gene expression. The role of DNA methylation in sex determination was investigated in spinach. The differentiated cytosine CpG methylation profiles of CCGG motifs were assessed with methylation sensitivity amplification polymorphism (MSAP) in spinach. Among 442 DNA fragments from four plants, 134 methylated fragments were found. Relative proportions of methylation sites were 28.8% in male plants and 31.8% in female plants. At the same time, cytosine methylation levels were higher in females than in males in CCGG motifs of genomes in the spinach. These findings suggest that methylation of CG islands is involved in sex determination and differentiation in spinach.
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This study was financially supported by the 2020 Excellent Young Teacher Training Plan of Sanquan College at Xinxiang Medical College under Grant No. SQ2021YQJHO3.
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KJ was in charge of the experimental material extraction, experimental design, and manuscript preparation; HL and JD performed experimental operation; GC did experimental data collection, organization and analysis; MH and SL managed experiments and did manuscript review and editing.
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Jia, K., Duan, J., Cheng, G. et al. DNA Methylation is Involved in Sex Determination in Spinach. Biochem Genet (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10528-023-10524-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10528-023-10524-4