Abstract
We have detected sequence-specific non-symmetrical cytosine methylation within a 140 bp region of the promoter for the tobacco auxin-binding protein gene T85 in pollen DNA. Direct sequencing of the population of bisulphite reaction products showed that, in this region, 10 out of a possible 49 cytosine residues were methylated at a high frequency in pollen whereas the corresponding region from somatic cells (leaf DNA) did not show a detectable level of methylation. The context of these sites was 1×m5CpTpC, 1×m5CpGpT, 1×m5CpCpT, 2×m5CpTpT, 2×m5CpGpG, and 3×m5CpApT of which only m5CpGpG and m5CpGpT fitted the consensus sequence for symmetrical methylation in plants.
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Oakeley, E.J., Jost, JP. Non-symmetrical cytosine methylation in tobacco pollen DNA. Plant Mol Biol 31, 927–930 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00019481
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00019481