Epigenetic memory and cell fate reprogramming in plants.
Plants have a high intrinsic capacity to regenerate from adult tissues, with the ability to reprogram adult cell fates. In contrast, epigenetic mechanisms have the potential to stabilize cell identity and maintain tissue organization. The question is whether epigenetic memory creates a barrier to reprogramming that needs to be erased or circumvented in plant regeneration. Early evidence suggests that, while chromatin dynamics impact gene expression in the meristem, a lasting constraint on cell fate is not established until late stages of plant cell differentiation. It is not yet clear whether the plasticity of plant cells arises from the ability of cells to erase identity memory or to deploy cells that may exhibit cellular specialization but still lack an epigenetic restriction on cell fate alteration.
Center for Genomics and Systems Biology New York University 12 Waverly Place, New York NY 10003 USA.
Kenneth D
KD
Birnbaum
Institut de Biologie de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) UMR 8197 Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) U1024 Ecole Normale Supérieure, 46 rue d'Ulm, 75230 Paris Cedex 05 France; Laboratoire de Reproduction et Développement des Plantes, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) UMR 5667, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) UMR 879, Ecole Normale Supérieure de LyonUniversité Lyon 1 (UCBL) 46 Allée d'Italie, 69364 Lyon Cedex 07 France.
François
F
Roudier
DNA methylation; cellular reprogramming; chromatin remodeling; epigenetic memory; plants; polycomb group complex; regeneration