Nature Plants ( IF 18.0 ) Pub Date : 2020-09-21 , DOI: 10.1038/s41477-020-00774-0 Xiao Luo 1 , Yang Ou 1, 2 , Renjie Li 1, 3 , Yuehui He 1
Some plants can ‘remember’ past environmental experience to become adapted to a given environment. For instance, after experiencing prolonged low-temperature exposure in winter (winter cold), vernalization-responsive plants remember past cold experience when temperature rises in spring, to acquire competence to flower at a later season favourable for seed production1,2. In Arabidopsis thaliana, prolonged cold induces silencing of the potent floral repressor FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) by Polycomb group (PcG) chromatin modifiers. This Polycomb-repressed chromatin state is epigenetically maintained and thus ‘memorized’ in subsequent growth and development upon return to warmth1,3. ‘Memory of winter cold’ has been viewed as being mitotically stable but meiotically unstable3,4,5, and thus not to be transmitted intergenerationally. In general, whether and how chromatin-mediated environmental memories are transmitted across generations are unknown in plants. Here, we show that the cold-induced Polycomb-repressed chromatin state at FLC or memory of winter cold is maintained in the egg cell, that is meiotically stable in the process of female gamete formation, and provide evidence that this Polycomb-mediated memory is not maintained in the sperm cell. Moreover, we show that this cold memory is inherited maternally but not paternally to the zygote and early embryos. Our study demonstrates and further provides mechanistic insights into intergenerational transmission of chromatin state-mediated environmental memories in plants.
中文翻译:
拟南芥的表观遗传“冬季寒冷记忆”的母源传播。
一些工厂可以“记住”过去的环境经验,以适应给定的环境。例如,在冬天(冬季寒冷)经历了长时间的低温暴露后,春化反应性植物记住了春季温度升高时过去的寒冷经历,以获得在后期有利于种子生产的开花能力1,2。在拟南芥中,长时间的寒冷会导致由Polycomb组(PcG)染色质修饰剂引起的强效花卉阻遏物FLOWERING LOCUS C(FLC)的沉默。这种被聚梳抑制的染色质状态在表观遗传上得以保持,并因此“记忆”在随后回到温暖状态下的生长和发育中1,3。“冬季寒冷的记忆”被认为是有丝分裂稳定的,而减数分裂不稳定的3,4,5,因此不会代代相传。通常,在植物中尚不清楚染色质介导的环境记忆是否以及如何跨代传播。在这里,我们显示了在FLC中冷诱导的Polycomb抑制的染色质状态卵细胞维持了冬季感冒或记忆力,即在雌性配子形成过程中减数分裂是稳定的,并提供了证明这种在精子细胞中未保持这种Polycomb介导的记忆力的证据。此外,我们表明,这种冷记忆是母体遗传的,而不是母体遗传给合子和早期胚胎。我们的研究表明,并进一步提供了对染色质状态介导的环境记忆在植物中的世代传播的机制的见解。