Biologists have investigated the inner workings of DNA methylation in plants. Their findings could help engineer crops that are more resilient to environmental changes, like heat or drought stress.
Biologists at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered the origin of a curious duplication that gives plants multiple ways to override instructions that are coded into their DNA. This research could help scientists exploit a plant's existing systems to favor traits that make it more resilient to environmental changes, like heat or drought stress.
Part of this job involves silencing, or turning off, certain snippets of DNA that move around within an organism's genome. These so-called jumping genes, or transposons, can cause damage if not controlled. The entire process is regulated by enzymes, but mammals and plants have developed different enzymes to add methyl groups.
"Arginine is special because it has charge," said Jia Gwee, a graduate student in biology and co-first author of the study."In a cell, it's positively charged and thus can form hydrogen bonds or other chemical interactions with, for example, the negatively charged DNA." This research also provided insights about CMT2's unique structure. The enzyme has a long, flexible N-terminal that controls its own protein stability."This is one of the ways plants evolved for genome stability and to fight environmental stresses," Zhong said. This feature may explain why CMT2 evolved in plants growing in such a wide variety of conditions worldwide.
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