Arabidopsis Serrate Coordinates Histone Methyltransferases ATXR5/6 and RNA Processing Factor RDR6 to Regulate Transposon Expression. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Serrate (SE) is a key component in RNA metabolism. Little is known about whether and how it can regulate epigenetic silencing. Here, we report histone methyltransferases ATXR5 and ATXR6 (ATXR5/6) as novel partners of SE. ATXR5/6 deposit histone 3 lysine 27 monomethylation (H3K27me1) to promote heterochromatin formation, repress transposable elements (TEs), and control genome stability in Arabidopsis. SE binds to ATXR5/6-regulated TE loci and promotes H3K27me1 accumulation in these regions. Furthermore, SE directly enhances ATXR5 enzymatic activity invitro. Unexpectedly, se mutation suppresses the TE reactivation and DNA re-replication phenotypes in the atxr5 atxr6 mutant. The suppression of TE expression results from triggering RNA-dependent RNA polymerase 6 (RDR6)-dependent RNA silencingin the se atxr5 atxr6 mutant. We propose that SE facilitates ATXR5/6-mediated deposition of the H3K27me1 mark while inhibiting RDR6-mediated RNA silencing to protect TE transcripts. Hence, SE coordinates epigenetic silencing and RNA processing machineries to fine-tune the TE expression.

published proceedings

  • Dev Cell

altmetric score

  • 31.5

author list (cited authors)

  • Ma, Z., Castillo-Gonzlez, C., Wang, Z., Sun, D. i., Hu, X., Shen, X., Potok, M. E., & Zhang, X.

citation count

  • 35

complete list of authors

  • Ma, Zeyang||Castillo-González, Claudia||Wang, Zhiye||Sun, Di||Hu, Xiaomei||Shen, Xuefeng||Potok, Magdalena E||Zhang, Xiuren

publication date

  • January 2018