Drought-inducible changes in the histone modification H3K9ac are associated with drought-responsive gene expression in Brachypodium distachyon

H3K9ac, an epigenetic marker, is widely distributed in plant genomes. H3K9ac enhances gene expression, which is highly conserved in eukaryotes. However, genome-wide study of H3K9ac in monocot species is limited, and the changes in H3K9ac under drought stress for individual genes are still not clear. We analyzed changes in the H3K9ac level of Brachypodium distachyon under 20% PEG-6000-simulated drought stress conditions. Furthermore, we performed chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by next generation sequencing (ChIP-seq) on H3K9ac to reveal the changes in H3K9ac for individual genes at the genome-wide level. Our study showed that H3K9ac was mainly enriched in gene exon regions.