Bisulfite sequencing of Arabidopsis T-DNA mutants

Introduction of transgenes into plant genomes by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation has been widely used for random mutagenesis of genomes, generation of transgenic plants conferring particular traits, and characterization of gene of interest. However, transgenes are often epigenetically silenced by host genome defense mechanisms. Loss of mutant phenotypes in intronic T-DNA insertion lines by interaction with an additional T-DNA locus, termed T-DNA suppression, has been observed in Arabidopsis thaliana. In this study, DNA methylation of intronic T-DNAs before and after suppression was investigated.