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Updated: May 8, 2026

Determination of DNA Methylation of Imprinted Genes in Arabidopsis Endosperm
Published on: January 28, 2011
siRNA-mediated DNA methylation and H3K9 dimethylation in plants
Chi Xu1, Jing Tian2, Beixin Mo3
1College of Life Science, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Microbial Genetic Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China.
Abstract:
Heterochromatic siRNAs regulate transcriptional gene silencing by inducing DNA methylation and histone H3K9 dimethylation. Recent advances have revealed the distinct phases involved in siRNA mediated silencing pathway, although the precise functions of a number of factors remain undesignated, putative mechanisms for the connection between DNA and histone methylation have been investigated, and much effort has been invested to understand the biological functions of siRNA-mediated epigenetic modification. In this review, we summarize the mechanism of siRNA-mediated epigenetic modification, which involves the production of siRNA and the recruitments of DNA and histone methytransferases to the target sequences assisted by complementary pairing between 24-nt siRNAs and nascent scaffold RNAs, the roles of siRNA-mediated epigenetic modification in maintaining genome stability and regulating gene expression have been discussed, newly identified players of the siRNA mediated silencing pathway have also been introduced.
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