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Progressive DNA demethylation in epigenetic hybrids between parental plants with and without methylation of the transgene promoter

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Abstract

Key message

Crosses of parents that differ in their DNA methylation states leads to progressive demethylation in the F1 hybrids.

Abstract

In plant breeding research, hybrid vigor in F1 hybrids is known to be a very important phenomenon. Hybrid vigor, or heterosis, refers to the fact that F1 hybrids from crosses with a certain combination of parents have traits that are superior to those of the parents. In addition, DNA methylation is an important factor that affects gene expression in plant genomes and contributes to hybrid vigor. We introduced the 35S promoter sequence into the cucumber mosaic virus (CMV)-based vector and inoculated the GFP-expressing transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana line 16c with the recombinant virus specifically to induce DNA methylation on the 35S promoter. For plants that had transcriptional gene silencing (TGS) of GFP established by methylation of the 35S promoter (35S-TGS), TGS was fully maintained in their later self-pollinated generations. When the 35S-TGS plants were crossed with 16c, which does not contain DNA methylation in the 35S promoter, the F1 hybrids unexpectedly became progressively DNA demethylated as the plants grew. We hypothesis that in F1 hybrids that are produced by a cross between parents with extremely different gene methylation states, the methylation state of the genes in question may shift more and more to hypomethylation as the plants grow. This progressive demethylation phenomenon observed in this study may be important in plant breeding to reactivate the genes which were silenced by DNA methylation.

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Funding

This work was supported by the promotion services of the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) (project code: P16009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Faculty of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, Kita 9 Nishi 9, Kita-ku, Sapporo, 060-8589, Japan

    Wataru Matsunaga, Tsuyoshi Inukai & Chikara Masuta

Authors
  1. Wataru Matsunaga
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  2. Tsuyoshi Inukai
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  3. Chikara Masuta
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Contributions

CM and TI designed and coordinated the study. WM performed all analyses. All authors contributed to the analysis of results, manuscript revisions and approved the final publication.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Tsuyoshi Inukai or Chikara Masuta.

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The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interests.

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Communicated by Kan Wang.

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Matsunaga, W., Inukai, T. & Masuta, C. Progressive DNA demethylation in epigenetic hybrids between parental plants with and without methylation of the transgene promoter. Theor Appl Genet 135, 883–893 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-021-04004-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-021-04004-9

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