Retinoblastoma Makes Its Mark on Imprinting in Plants 英文参考文献.docVIP

Primer Retinoblastoma Makes Its Mark on Imprinting in Plants Liliana M. Costa , José F. Gutierrez-Marcos * G enomic imprinting results in the preferential expression of alleles from either the maternal or paternal chromosomes. This epigenetic process modifications by PcG complexes, or DNA methylation by the DNA methyltransferase enzyme MET1, a homolog of mammalian Dnmt1. Current data suggest that imprints are set during gametogenesis. In plants, female gametogenesis results in the formation of two gametes: the haploid egg cell and the homodiploid central cell, which contains two haploid nuclei, while male gametogenesis results in the formation of two genetically identical haploid sperm cells. In most cases, methylation is thought to be the primary epigenetic state of imprinted genes in the gametes. During gamete differentiation, demethylation is known to occur at some imprinted loci in the central cell, thus establishing differentially methylated regions (DMRs) between male and female gametes [11–14]. DEMETER (DME), a DNA glycosylase involved in DNA base-excision repair [15], has been shown to be responsible for DNA demethylation at some imprinted loci. However, it is likely that additional factors (possibly including other DNA excision repair enzymes) are also involved in the demethylation of imprints. In mammals, loss of methylation is believed to occur through active and passive processes, either by base-excision repair or by replicating DNA in the absence of DNA methyltransferases, respectively [16]. In support of the latter, recent reports showed that the mammalian cell cycle regulator protein Retinoblastoma (RB) is involved in the transcriptional repression ofDnmt1 [17,18]. RB functions in a complex with other RB-binding proteins, including histone deacetylases (HDACs) and the mammalian homologs of the plant PcG WD-40 protein MULTICOPY SUPPRESSOR OF IRA1 (MSI1) (RbAp46/48), to regulate transcription of E2F target genes. This offers a tantalizing new model f