PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Lexiang Ji
AU  - William T. Jordan
AU  - Xiuling Shi
AU  - Lulu Hu
AU  - Chuan He
AU  - Robert J. Schmitz
TI  - TET-mediated epimutagenesis of the <em>Arabidopsis thaliana</em> methylome
AID  - 10.1101/151027
DP  - 2017 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 151027
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/20/151027.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/06/20/151027.full
AB  - DNA methylation in the promoters of plant genes often leads to transcriptional repression, and the wholesale removal of DNA methylation in methyltransferase mutants results in severe gene expression and developmental defects. However, many cases of naturally-occurring DNA methylation variations have been reported, where the differential expression of differentially methylated genes are responsible for agronomically important traits. The ability to manipulate plant methylomes to generate populations of epigenetically distinct plants could provide invaluable resources for breeding and research. Here we describe a novel “epimutagenesis” method to rapidly generate methylation variations through random demethylation of the Arabidopsis thaliana genome. This method involves the expression of a human Ten-eleven translocation (TET) enzyme and results in widespread hypomethylation and the redistribution of heterochromatin, mimicking mutants in the maintenance DNA methyltransferase met1. Application of TET-mediated epimutagenesis to agriculturally significant plants may result in differential expression of alleles typically silenced by DNA methylation, uncovering previously hidden traits.