sirna–mediated methylation of arabidopsis telomeres拟南芥染色体端粒的sirna-mediated甲基化.pdfVIP

siRNA–Mediated Methylation of Arabidopsis Telomeres 1,2.¤a 1. 1. 3 1¤b Jan Vrbsky , Svetlana Akimcheva , J. Matthew Watson , Thomas L. Turner , Lucia Daxinger , 2 1 1 Boris Vyskot , Werner Aufsatz , Karel Riha * 1 Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria, 2 Institute of Biophysics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic, 3 Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology Department, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, United States of America Abstract Chromosome termini form a specialized type of heterochromatin that is important for chromosome stability. The recent discovery of telomeric RNA transcripts in yeast and vertebrates raised the question of whether RNA–based mechanisms are involved in the formation of telomeric heterochromatin. In this study, we performed detailed analysis of chromatin structure and RNA transcription at chromosome termini in Arabidopsis. Arabidopsis telomeres display features of intermediate heterochromatin that does not extensively spread to subtelomeric regions which encode transcriptionally active genes. We also found telomeric repeat–containing transcripts arising from telomeres and centromeric loci, a portion of which are processed into small interfering RNAs. These telomeric siRNAs contribute to the maintenance of telomeric chromatin through promoting methylation of asymmetric cytosines in telomeric (CCCTAAA)n repeats. The formation of telomeric siRNAs and methylation of telomeres relies on the RNA–depen