ArticleNature2011
Spontaneous epigenetic variation in the Arabidopsis thaliana methylome.
Article in Nature, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 350 papers.
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Who cites it
350 citing papers in PubMed.
- The CRISPR-dCas9 epigenetic toolbox: prospects for modulating gene expression in climate-resilient crops.Planta · 2026Review
- Methylated memories mechanism, evidence, and skepticism in plant transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.Protoplasma · 2026Review
- Mapping genetic modifiers of epimutation rates identifies VIM2/4 as dosage-sensitive negative regulators of CG methylation maintenance.Nature plants · 2026Article
- Partial Reproducibility and Pleiotropic Epigenetic QTLs inPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Integrated Analysis of DNA Methylation and Transcriptomic Dynamics in the Grape Variety 'Cabernet Franc' at Early and Late Stages of Fruit Development.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Epigenetic regulation of mycorrhizal symbioses: from plastic responses to transgenerational legacies.The New phytologist · 2026Review
- Centromeres are hotspots of cytosine methylation epimutations in a filamentous fungus.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Epimutations: raw material for evolution?The EMBO journal · 2026Review
- Photorespiration is linked to DNA methylation by formate as a one-carbon source.Nature plants · 2026Article
- From natural theology to the extended synthesis: Historical milestones and conceptual expansions in evolutionary biology.Genetics and molecular biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Branching architecture limits the number of fixed somatic mutations in trees.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2025Article
- Reversibility of sex changes in the plant kingdom: more important than we thought?Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Major alleles of CDCA7 shape CG methylation in Arabidopsis thaliana.Nature plants · 2025Article
- Accelerated growth increases the somatic epimutation rate in trees.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Gene body methylation regulates gene expression and mediates phenotypic diversity in natural Arabidopsis populations.Nature plants · 2025Article
- Article
- Somatic Evolution of Stem Cell Mutations in Long-Lived Plants.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Empowering plant epigenetics to breed resilience of crops: From nucleolar dominance to transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.The plant genome · 2025Review
- Methylomes Reveal Recent Evolutionary Changes in Populations of Two Plant Species.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
290 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Heritable epigenetic polymorphisms, such as differential cytosine methylation, can underlie phenotypic variation. Moreover, wild strains of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana differ in many epialleles, and these can influence the expression of nearby genes. However, to understand their role in evolution, it is imperative to ascertain the emergence rate and stability of epialleles, including those that are not due to structural variation. We have compared genome-wide DNA methylation among 10 A. thaliana lines, derived 30 generations ago from a common ancestor. Epimutations at individual positions were easily detected, and close to 30,000 cytosines in each strain were differentially methylated. In contrast, larger regions of contiguous methylation were much more stable, and the frequency of changes was in the same low range as that of DNA mutations. Like individual positions, the same regions were often affected by differential methylation in independent lines, with evidence for recurrent cycles of forward and reverse mutations. Transposable elements and short interfering RNAs have been causally linked to DNA methylation. In agreement, differentially methylated sites were farther from transposable elements and showed less association with short interfering RNA expression than invariant positions. The biased distribution and frequent reversion of epimutations have important implications for the potential contribution of sequence-independent epialleles to plant evolution.
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