Bisulfite sequencing of Arabidopsis T-DNA mutants. Arabidopsis thaliana

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.

利用农杆菌介导转化法（Agrobacterium-mediated transformation）将转基因（transgene）整合至植物基因组的技术，已被广泛应用于基因组随机诱变、创制携带特定性状的转基因植株，以及目标基因的功能鉴定。然而，转基因常会被宿主基因组的防御机制介导表观遗传沉默。在拟南芥（Arabidopsis thaliana）中，曾观测到内含子区T-DNA（转移DNA，Transfer DNA）插入突变株系与额外T-DNA位点发生互作时，其突变体表型出现丢失的现象，该现象被命名为T-DNA抑制。本研究对T-DNA抑制现象发生前后，内含子区T-DNA的DNA甲基化情况进行了分析探究。