A new molecular mechanism underlying plant cell reprogramming

November 4, 2019

Expecting to lead efficient tissue culture engineering

RIKEN CSRS, the National Institute of Genetics, Chubu University, and the French National Agricultural Research Institute have discovered a new mechanism that controls reprogramming of plant cells at the chromatin level.

The international collaborators examined the relationship between changes in chromatin structure and gene expression during wound-induced cell reprogramming in Arabidopsis roots, finding that histones H3s which are corresponding regions of wound-inducible reprogramming genes have already acetylated before wounding and/or get acetylated within a few hours after wounding. They also clarified that such histone acetylation is essential for gene expression activation for transcription factors such as WIND1 and RAP2.6L that promote cell reprogramming. Researchers also found that acetyltransferases HAG1 and HAG3 catalyze wound-induced histone acetylation.

These results are expected to contribute to the development of efficient plant tissue culture engineerings, i.e. propagation, breeding and useful metabolites production.

Original article
Communications Biology doi:10.1038/s42003-019-0646-5
Bart Rymen, Ayako Kawamura, Alice Lambolez, Soichi Inagaki, Arika Takebayashi, Akira Iwase, Yuki Sakamoto, Kaori Sako, David S. Favero, Momoko Ikeuchi, Takamasa Suzuki, Motoaki Seki, Tetsuji Kakutani, François Roudier and Keiko Sugimoto,
"Histone acetylation orchestrates wound-induced transcriptional activation and cellular reprogramming in Arabidopsis".
Contact
Keiko Sugimoto; Team Leader
Alice Lambolez; Student Trainee
Cell Function Research Team