Yup, you read the title right...props for you haha! Anyways, Researchers at the RIKEN Plant Science Center (PSC) have clarified a key epigenetic mechanism by which an enzyme in the model plant Arabidopsis protects cells from harmful DNA elements. Living cells greatly depend on the proper function of their DNA in order to survive. However, certain DNA elements such as transposons (fragments of DNA that replicate within an organism's genome) disrupt this functioning and disable genes.
Ooh question! How are cells able to defend themselves between such harmful elements? Lets contemplate this question for a few seconds.... Eukaryotic cells have both active and inactive DNA; their inactive DNA become tightly-packed, this is called heterochromatin, and these dense structure serves to repress the expression of nearby gene sequences and protect the genome.
According to earlier research, "heterochromatin silencing" in Arabidopsis involves a key enzyme called HDA6. To further their research, scientists investigated the involvement of HDA6 through two processes: DNA methylation and the modification of histone.
How were researchers able to show whether plants with repressed HDA6 function can silence harmful DNA elements? They found their results through a genome-wide comparison, and discovered that these plants with repressed HDA6 function are not able to silence harmful DNA elements. This is because HDA6 binds directly to transposons and silences their activity through specific histone modifications. Therefore, researchers suggest that this enzyme plays an important role in gene silencing for plants.
(The image above shows Arabidopsis thaliana, a small flowering plant that is widely used as a model organism in plant biology and is also discussed in this article.)
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