Increasing natural resistance and resilience in plants is key for ensuring food security within a changing climate. Breeders improve these traits by crossing cultivars with their wild relatives and introgressing specific alleles through meiotic recombination. However, some genomic regions are devoid of recombination especially in crosses between divergent genomes, limiting the combinations of desirable alleles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDisruption of cell division cycle associated 7 (CDCA7) has been linked to aberrant DNA hypomethylation, but the impact of DNA methylation loss on transcription has not been investigated. Here, we show that CDCA7 is critical for maintaining global DNA methylation levels across multiple tissues in vivo. A pathogenic missense variant leads to the formation of large, aberrantly hypomethylated domains overlapping with the B genomic compartment but without affecting the deposition of H3K9 trimethylation (H3K9me3).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGrainyhead like 2 (GRHL2) is an essential transcription factor for development and function of epithelial tissues. It has dual roles in cancer by supporting tumor growth while suppressing epithelial to mesenchymal transitions (EMT). GRHL2 cooperates with androgen and estrogen receptors (ER) to regulate gene expression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEpigenetics Chromatin
October 2021
Background: Microrchidia proteins (MORCs) are involved in epigenetic gene silencing in a variety of eukaryotic organisms. Deletion of MORCs result in several developmental abnormalities and their dysregulation has been implicated in developmental disease and multiple cancers. Specifically, mammalian MORC3 mutations are associated with immune system defects and human cancers such as bladder, uterine, stomach, lung, and diffuse large B cell lymphomas.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFT cell factor 1 (Tcf1) is the first T cell-specific protein induced by Notch signaling in the thymus, leading to the activation of two major target genes, and . Tcf1 deficiency results in partial arrests in T cell development, high apoptosis, and increased development of B and myeloid cells. Phenotypically, seemingly fully T cell-committed thymocytes with Tcf1 deficiency have promiscuous gene expression and an altered epigenetic profile and can dedifferentiate into more immature thymocytes and non-T cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImaging cells, nuclei, and DNA in their natural spatial contexts and configurations is challenging yet required to understand the biology of genome organization, maintenance, and transmission. Live-cell imaging allows capturing dynamic changes of chromosomes in their nuclear and cellular context but lacks resolution. In contrast, imaging of fixed, spread chromosome samples provides unmatched resolution but potentially distorts configurations and spatial relations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCrossover formation during meiosis in plants is required for proper chromosome segregation and is essential for crop breeding as it allows an (optimal) combination of traits by mixing parental alleles on each chromosome. Crossover formation commences with the production of a large number of DNA double-strand breaks, of which only a few result in crossovers. A small number of genes, which drive the resolution of DNA crossover intermediate structures towards non-crossovers, have been identified in Arabidopisis thaliana.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurr Protoc Plant Biol
September 2018
Interactions occurring between DNA and proteins across the nuclear genome regulate numerous processes, including meiosis. Meiosis ensures genetic variation and balanced segregation of homologous chromosomes. It involves complex DNA-protein interactions across the entire genome to regulate a broad range of processes, including formation and repair of double-strand DNA breaks (DSBs), chromosome compaction, homolog pairing, synapsis, and homologous recombination.
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