Ancestral repeats have shaped epigenome and genome composition for millions of years in Arabidopsis thaliana

Florian Maumus () and Hadi Quesneville ()
Additional contact information
Florian Maumus: INRA, UR1164 URGI—Research Unit in Genomics-Info, INRA de Versailles-Grignon
Hadi Quesneville: INRA, UR1164 URGI—Research Unit in Genomics-Info, INRA de Versailles-Grignon

Nature Communications, 2014, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Little is known about the evolution of repeated sequences over long periods of time. Using two independent approaches, we show that the majority of the repeats found in the Arabidopsis thaliana genome are ancient and likely to derive from the retention of fragments deposited during ancestral bursts that occurred early in the Brassicaceae evolution. We determine that the majority of young repeats are found in pericentromeric domains, while older copies are frequent in the gene-rich regions. Our results further suggest that the DNA methylation of repeats through small RNA-mediated pathways can last over prolonged periods of time. We also illustrate the way repeated sequences are composted by mutations towards genomic dark matter over time, probably driven by the deamination of methylcytosines, which also have an impact on epigenomic landscapes. Overall, we show that the ancient proliferation of repeat families has long-term consequences on A. thaliana biology and genome composition.

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms5104 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:5:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms5104

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5104

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().