Reprogramming Cell Identity or Function in the Context of Chromatin

Disruption of epigenetic silencing by Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2) causes severe homeotic transformations and alters developmental phase identity in plants, yet how PRC2 targets the loci it silences remains poorly understood. Here, we define short genomic DNA fragments sufficient for PRC2 recruitment in Arabidopsis and identify transcription factor (TF) families that bind these plant Polycomb Response Elements (PREs). Members of two of the TF families physically interact with PRC2, co-occupy thousands of genomic regions with PRC2, and are required for PRC2 recruitment and Polycomb silencing in vivo. Cis motifs associated with Polycomb binding peaks are required for PRE activity and bound by the identified TFs. Our combined data implicate a DNA sequence-based mechanism PRC2 recruitment in plants that relies on combinatorial activity of multiple cis- and trans-determinants and pave the way for epigenetic programming of desirable plant traits.

Title: Cis- and trans-determinants of epigenetic silencing by Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 in Arabidopsis

Submitter's E-mail Address: wagnerdo@sas.upenn.edu

Author list

Jun Xiao¹, Run Jin¹, Max Shen¹, Xiang Yu¹, John Wagner², Armaan Pai², Claire Song², Michael Zhuang², Chongsheng He³, Alexandre M. Santos⁴, Chris Helliwell⁵, Jose L Pruneda-Paz⁶, Steve A Kay⁷, Xiaowei Lin⁸, Sujuan Cui⁸, Meilin Fernandez Garcia⁹, Oliver Clarenz¹⁰, Justin Goodrich¹⁰, Xiaoyu Zhang⁴, Roberto Bonasio³, Ryan S. Austin^11,12& Doris Wagner¹

¹Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

²Lab course BIOL425 Fall and Spring 2015, Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

³Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

⁴Department of Plant Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.

⁵CSIRO Agriculture and Food, Canberra, Australia.

⁶Division of Biology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.

⁷Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA.

⁸College of Life Science in Hebei Normal University, Hebei, P.R. China

⁹Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

¹⁰University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.

¹¹Agriculture & Agri-Foods Canada, London, ON, Canada.

¹²Department of Biology, Western University, London, ON, Canada.

Session Selection: EPIC workshop