Abstract
In flowering plants, heterochromatin is demarcated by the histone variant H2A.W, elevated levels of the linker histone H1, and specific epigenetic modifications, including DNA methylation and H3K9 methylation. How H2A.W regulates heterochromatin organization and interacts with other heterochromatic features is unclear. To analyze the in vivo function of H2A.W, we created a h2a.w null mutant via CRISPR-Cas9, h2a.w-2. We found that H2A.W is not essential for plant development, and that loss of H2A.W did not perturb histone methylation patterns. In contrast, we found a reduction of non-CG DNA methylation in pericentromeric heterochromatin and an increase in DNA methylation at euchromatic sites targeted by the RNA-directed DNA methylation pathway. Loss of DNA methylation in h2a.w-2 correlated with both increased H1 occupancy and decreased DNA accessibility at heterochromatin. Our results indicate that H2A.W helps stabilize the accessibility of heterochromatin and facilitates efficient DNA methylation by fine tuning the genomic distribution of H1.