This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Supplemental Research Data Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Rabinowicz, P. D. Articles by Martienssen, R. A. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Rabinowicz, P. D. Articles by Martienssen, R. A. Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Letter

Genes and Transposons Are Differentially Methylated in Plants, but Not in Mammals

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York 11724, USA

DNA methylation is found in many eukaryotes, but its function is still controversial. We have studied the methylation of plant and animal genomes using a PCR-based technique amenable for high throughput. Repetitive elements are methylated in both organisms, but whereas most mammalian exons are methylated, plant exons are not. Thus, targeting of methylation specifically to transposons appears to be restricted to plants. We propose that the mechanistic basis of this difference may involve RNA interference. Sequencing strategies that depend on differential methylation are predicted to have different outcomes in plant and mammalian genomes.

¹ Corresponding author.
E-MAIL martiens{at}cshl.org; FAX (516) 367-8369.

[Supplemental material is available online at www.genome.org.]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				X. Li, X. Wang, K. He, Y. Ma, N. Su, H. He, V. Stolc, W. Tongprasit, W. Jin, J. Jiang, et al. High-Resolution Mapping of Epigenetic Modifications of the Rice Genome Uncovers Interplay between DNA Methylation, Histone Methylation, and Gene Expression PLANT CELL, February 1, 2008; 20(2): 259 - 276. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				K. Kashkush and V. Khasdan Large-Scale Survey of Cytosine Methylation of Retrotransposons and the Impact of Readout Transcription From Long Terminal Repeats on Expression of Adjacent Rice Genes Genetics, December 1, 2007; 177(4): 1975 - 1985. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. Gore, P. Bradbury, R. Hogers, M. Kirst, E. Verstege, J. van Oeveren, J. Peleman, E. Buckler, and M. van Eijk Evaluation of Target Preparation Methods for Single-Feature Polymorphism Detection in Large Complex Plant Genomes Crop Sci., July 16, 2007; 47(S2): S-135 - S-148. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. M. Suzuki, A. R.W. Kerr, D. De Sousa, and A. Bird CpG methylation is targeted to transcription units in an invertebrate genome Genome Res., May 1, 2007; 17(5): 625 - 631. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				A. L. Keyte, R. Percifield, B. Liu, and J. F. Wendel Infraspecific DNA Methylation Polymorphism in Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) J. Hered., September 1, 2006; 97(5): 444 - 450. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				P. D. Rabinowicz, R. Citek, M. A. Budiman, A. Nunberg, J. A. Bedell, N. Lakey, A. L. O'Shaughnessy, L. U. Nascimento, W. R. McCombie, and R. A. Martienssen Differential methylation of genes and repeats in land plants Genome Res., October 1, 2005; 15(10): 1431 - 1440. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				G. Yang, Y.-H. Lee, Y. Jiang, X. Shi, S. Kertbundit, and T. C. Hall A Two-Edged Role for the Transposable Element Kiddo in the rice ubiquitin2 Promoter PLANT CELL, May 1, 2005; 17(5): 1559 - 1568. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				J. Meunier, A. Khelifi, V. Navratil, and L. Duret Homology-dependent methylation in primate repetitive DNA PNAS, April 12, 2005; 102(15): 5471 - 5476. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				L. Ponger and W.-H. Li Evolutionary Diversification of DNA Methyltransferases in Eukaryotic Genomes Mol. Biol. Evol., April 1, 2005; 22(4): 1119 - 1128. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				L. E. Palmer, P. D. Rabinowicz, A. L. O'Shaughnessy, V. S. Balija, L. U. Nascimento, S. Dike, M. de la Bastide, R. A. Martienssen, and W. R. McCombie Maize Genome Sequencing by Methylation Filtration Science, December 19, 2003; 302(5653): 2115 - 2117. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]