Differential sensitivity of CG and CCG DNA sequences to ethionine-induced hypomethylation of the Nicotiana tabacum genome.
Plant DNA is distinguished from the DNA of all other organisms by its high content of 5-methylcytosine (5mC). 5mC levels may amount to 30% of total cytosines, distributed between the sequences CG and CXG. The results presented here show that the methylation status of CXG sequences could be influenced by culturing tobacco tissues on subtoxic concentrations of ethionine. The hypomethylating effect of ethionine, evaluated as the capability of MspI or HpaII to cleave the DNA, proved to be rather specific for CCG and differed from that of 5-azacytidine which did not discriminate between CG and CXG sequences.
Institute of Biophysics, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Brno.
M
M
Bezdĕk
B
B
Koukalová
V
V
Kuhrová
B
B
Vyskot
D001374:Azacitidine / Q000494:pharmacology; D003597:Cytosine Nucleotides / Q000737:chemistry*; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry / Q000187:drug effects*; D005001:Ethionine / Q000494:pharmacology*; D016678:Genome; D006150:Guanine Nucleotides / Q000737:chemistry*; D008745:Methylation / Q000187:drug effects; D010947:Plants, Toxic; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid / Q000187:drug effects*; D014026:Nicotiana / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics*
D003597:Cytosine Nucleotides; D006150:Guanine Nucleotides; D004247:DNA; D001374:Azacitidine; D005001:Ethionine