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Suppressors of Transcriptional Transgenic Silencing in Chlamydomonas are Sensitive to DNA-Damaging Agents and Reactivate Transposable Elements

In the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, the epigenetic silencing of transgenes occurs, as in land plants, at both the transcriptional and posttranscriptional levels. In the case of single-copy transgenes, transcriptional silencing takes place without detectable cytosine methylation...

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Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2002-01, Vol.99 (2), p.1076-1081
Main Authors: Jeong, Byeong-ryool, Wu-Scharf, Dancia, Zhang, Chaomei, Cerutti, Heriberto
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:In the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, the epigenetic silencing of transgenes occurs, as in land plants, at both the transcriptional and posttranscriptional levels. In the case of single-copy transgenes, transcriptional silencing takes place without detectable cytosine methylation of the introduced DNA. We have isolated two mutant strains, Mut-9 and Mut-11, that reactivate expression of a transcriptionally silenced single-copy transgene. These suppressors are deficient in the repression of a DNA transposon and a retrotransposon-like element. In addition, the mutant strain. These observations suggest that multiple partly redundant epigenetic mechanisms are involved in the repression of transgenes and transposons in eukaryotes, presumably as components of a system that evolved to preserve genomic stability. Our results also raise the possibility of mechanistic connections between epigenetic transcriptional silencing and DNA double-strand break repair.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.022392999