Application strategy of DNA methylation and bisultite sequencing in medicinal plants / 中草药

ABSTRACT

DNA methylation is one of the most widely epigenetics phenomena, methylated DNA can regulate the phenotype of plants without changing the nucleotide sequence. In higher plants, there are three methylated sites, CG, CHG, and CHH (H stands for A, C, or T). They often occur in symmetrical sequences CG and repetitive sequence, and methylation degrees and patterns are different among different species. The methylation of functional gene promoters can suppress the gene expression in medicinal plants, and then affect the accumulation of secondary metabolites, resulting in quality variations. Among many methods for the DNA methylation detection, bisulfite sequencing can identify the site and extent of DNA methylation at single nucleotide level, which is the gold standard for DNA methylation analysis. Through optimizing primers and improving technology, it can effectively reveal the DNA methylation status for medicinal plants and provide technical support and a new research direction for clarifying some problems such as quality variations in medicinal plants, which are not completely explained by classical genetics.