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Updated: Nov 5, 2025

Optimizing the Use of a Liquid Handling Robot to Conduct a High Throughput Forward Chemical Genetics Screen of Arabidopsis thaliana
Published on: April 30, 2018
Positive selective sweeps of epigenetic mutations regulating specialized metabolites in plants
Kazumasa Shirai1, Mitsuhiko P Sato2, Ranko Nishi3
1Department of Bioscience and Bioinformatics, Kyushu Institute of Technology, Fukuoka 820-8502, Japan.
Abstract:
DNA methylation is an important factor regulating gene expression in organisms. However, whether DNA methylation plays a key role in adaptive evolution is unknown. Here, we show evidence of naturally selected DNA methylation in Arabidopsis thaliana In comparison with single nucleotide polymorphisms, three types of methylation-methylated CGs (mCGs), mCHGs, and mCHHs-contributed highly to variable gene expression levels among an A thaliana population. Such variably expressed genes largely affect a large variation of specialized metabolic quantities. Among the three types of methylations, only mCGs located in promoter regions of genes associated with specialized metabolites show a selective sweep signature in the A thaliana population. Thus, naturally selected mCGs appear to be key mutations that cause the expressional diversity associated with specialized metabolites during plant evolution.
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