Moving targets: Mechanisms regulating siRNA production and DNA methylation during plant development

Curr Opin Plant Biol. 2023 Aug 18;75:102435. doi: 10.1016/j.pbi.2023.102435. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTDNA methylation is a conserved modification that must be precisely regulated during development to facilitate its roles in silencing transposable elements and regulating gene expression. In plants, DNA methylation changes during reproduction are widely documented and, in many cases, the underlying mechanisms are well understood. In somatic tissues, the diversity of methylation patterns are only recently emerging but they are often associated with the RNA-directed DNA methylation (RdDM) pathway. Here, we discuss advances in our understanding of how the locus-specific targeting and tissue-specific expression of RdDM proteins regulate methylation patterns, how the targeting of methylation at loci with imperfect homology expands the purview of RdDM, and how natural variation within RdDM factors impacts DNA methylation patterns.PMID:37598540 | DOI:10.1016/j.pbi.2023.102435
Source: Current Opinion in Plant Biology - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: research