PRJNA545383
Arabidopsis thaliana 3D Genome and Heat stress
In higher eukaryotes, heterochromatin is composed mainly of transposable elements (TEs) that are silenced by epigenetic mechanisms. Heat stress disrupts silencing of heterochromatin-associated TEs. However, the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are unclear. Here, we studied the genome-wide activation of Arabidopsis TEs in response to heat and demonstrated that chromatin structure reorganization contribute to TEs activation under heat stress. We compared the high-resolution chromatin packing patterns under normal growth conditions and heat stress by performing Hi-C. We found that heat stress causes global genome rearrangement. The regular long-range interactions of chromosome arms both with themselves and with pericentromere regions are disrupted, but short-range chromatin interactions walking along the chromosomes and among telomeres are slightly enhanced by heat. Specifically, both intra-chromosomal and inter-chromosomal interactions mediated by KEEs are dramatically reduced under heat stress.