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Chromatin Modifications in Plants

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Plant Genome Diversity Volume 1

Abstract

In eukaryotic cells, nuclear DNA is wrapped around the core histone octamers to form nucleosomes, which are further packaged into the chromatin. This process is thought to have been evolutionarily advantageous as a packaging mechanism to allow eukaryotic cells to accommodate longer DNA molecules. However, the discovery that both DNA and histones can be covalently modified led to the realization that chromatin structure may not be uniform across the genome, and that the local structural properties of the chromatin may have profound effects on the biological processes that occur in the chromatin environment. Two major types of modifications have been described, including the addition of a methyl group to the C5 position of the cytosine ring (referred to as cytosine methylation or DNA methylation), and the post-translational modifications of various residues in core histones (i.e., H2A, H2B, H3 and H4). These modifications are referred to as “epigenetic” as they can affect gene expression in a mitotically and meiotically stable manner without changing the underlying DNA sequences.

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Acknowledgement

The author is grateful to Drs. Jonathan Wendel and Christina Richards for their critical reading of the manuscript. Research in X.Z.’s laboratory is suppoted by the National Science Foundation Grant 0960425.

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Zhang, X. (2012). Chromatin Modifications in Plants. In: Wendel, J., Greilhuber, J., Dolezel, J., Leitch, I. (eds) Plant Genome Diversity Volume 1. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-1130-7_15

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