Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34452913›Full record

ArticleScience advances2021

An epigenetic basis of inbreeding depression in maize.

Tongwen Han, Fang Wang, Qingxin Song, Wenxue Ye, Tieshan Liu, Liming Wang, Z Jeffrey Chen

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Science advances, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
25citing papers in PubMed
3.6field-weighted citation impact, top 7% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

25 citing papers in PubMed, 33 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
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  7. Review
  8. DNA methylation in plant heterosis: mechanisms and prospects.Functional & integrative genomics · 2025
    Review
  9. Review
  10. Review
  11. Article
  12. Article
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  14. Article
  15. Review
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  17. Functional Characterization of Accessible Chromatin in Common Wheat.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024
    Article
  18. Mating strategies ofEcology and evolution · 2024
    Article
  19. Review
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.

Tongwen HanState Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, Nanjing Agricultural University, 1 Weigang Road, Nanjing 210095, China.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0946-3920
Fang WangState Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, Nanjing Agricultural University, 1 Weigang Road, Nanjing 210095, China.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3772-1074
Qingxin SongState Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, Nanjing Agricultural University, 1 Weigang Road, Nanjing 210095, China.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7081-3339
Wenxue YeState Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, Nanjing Agricultural University, 1 Weigang Road, Nanjing 210095, China.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9917-2176
Tieshan LiuMaize Research Institute, Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Jinan 250100, China.
Liming WangMaize Research Institute, Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Jinan 250100, China.
Z Jeffrey ChenDepartment of Molecular Biosciences and Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. zjchen@austin.utexas.edu.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5006-8036
Nanjing Agricultural University · CNShandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences · CN

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Inbreeding depression is widespread across plant and animal kingdoms and may arise from the exposure of deleterious alleles and/or loss of overdominant alleles resulting from increased homozygosity, but these genetic models cannot fully explain the phenomenon. Here, we report epigenetic links to inbreeding depression in maize. Teosinte branched1/cycloidea/proliferating cell factor (TCP) transcription factors control plant development. During successive inbreeding among inbred lines, thousands of genomic regions across TCP-binding sites (TBS) are hypermethylated through the H3K9me2-mediated pathway. These hypermethylated regions are accompanied by decreased chromatin accessibility, increased levels of the repressive histone marks H3K27me2 and H3K27me3, and reduced binding affinity of maize TCP-proteins to TBS. Consequently, hundreds of TCP-target genes involved in mitochondrion, chloroplast, and ribosome functions are down-regulated, leading to reduced growth vigor. Conversely, random mating can reverse corresponding hypermethylation sites and TCP-target gene expression, restoring growth vigor. These results support a unique role of reversible epigenetic modifications in inbreeding depression.

Identifiers

PMID34452913
PMCPMC8397266
OpenAlexW3193957535

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY-NC
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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.