2D morphometric analysis of Arabidopsis thaliana nuclei reveals characteristic profiles of different cell types and accessions

Functional changes of cells upon developmental switches and in response to environmental cues are often reflected in nuclear phenotypes, showing distinctive chromatin states corresponding to transcriptional changes. Such characteristic nuclear shapes have been microscopically monitored and can be qu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Chromosome research 2022-03, Vol.30 (1), p.5-24
Main Authors: Pavlova, Penka, van Zanten, Martijn, Snoek, Basten L., de Jong, Hans, Fransz, Paul
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal Genetics and Genomics
Arabidopsis - genetics
Arabidopsis thaliana
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Cell Biology
Cell Nucleus - genetics
Cell Nucleus - metabolism
Chromatin
Chromatin - genetics
Chromatin - metabolism
Compaction
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
DNA methylation
Epigenetics
Euchromatin
Euchromatin - metabolism
Flowers & plants
Fluorescence microscopy
Genes
Genomes
Genotype & phenotype
Guard cells
Heterochromatin
Heterochromatin - genetics
Heterochromatin - metabolism
Human Genetics
Life Sciences
Microscopy
Morphometry
Original
Original Article
Phenotypes
Plant Genetics and Genomics
Quantitative analysis
Spatial distribution
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Summary:Functional changes of cells upon developmental switches and in response to environmental cues are often reflected in nuclear phenotypes, showing distinctive chromatin states corresponding to transcriptional changes. Such characteristic nuclear shapes have been microscopically monitored and can be quantified after differential staining of euchromatin and heterochromatin domains. Here, we examined several nuclear parameters (size, DNA content, DNA density, chromatin compaction, relative heterochromatin fraction ( RHF ), and number of chromocenters) in relation to spatial distribution of genes and transposon elements (TEs), using standard 2D fluorescence microscopy. We provide nuclear profiles for different cell types and different accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana . A variable, yet significant, fraction of TEs was found outside chromocenters in all cell types, except for guard cells. The latter cell type features nuclei with the highest level of chromatin compaction, while their chromocenters seem to contain gene-rich regions. The highest number of parameter correlations was found in the accession Cvi, whereas L er showed only few correlations. This may point at differences in phenotype robustness between accessions. The significantly high association of NOR chromocenters in accessions Ws and Cvi corresponds to their low RHF level.
ISSN:0967-3849
1573-6849
DOI:10.1007/s10577-021-09673-2