Epigenetics and chromatin structure

Epigenetics, in the recent years, has focused on defining mechanisms of transmission of information which regulates gene expression in heritable fashion. This transgenerational epigenetic inheritance defines early pluripotent state of each cell and play an important role in development of each organism. Thus, the understanding of regulatory pathways affecting the transmission of epigenetic marks is essential for interpretation of important traits in plants and animals, in breeding programs and plant developmental studies.

 Our department focuses on the regulatory pathways affecting flower development and transgenerational inheritance of important flower traits in dioecious plants. We study epigenetic processes undergoing in the Y chromosome evolution, regulation of transposable elements by sRNA in various tissues and differences in expression patterns of X- and Y-linked alleles.

 We have showed that S. latifolia evolved similar mechanism of dosage compensation similarly as in mammals. We have described that Y-alleles possess higher level of inactive posttranslational histone modifications (PTMs) and showed that Y chromosome is being rather inactive. This was made possible by combination of molecular, genomic, and cytogenetic approaches. We study cytosine modifications (methyl-, hydroxy-, carboxy- and formylcytosine) regarding degenerative processes of the Y chromosome and focus on chemical genetics to understand how the Y chromosome epidegeneration occurs in the young sex chromosome systems. Further, we study what differences are in the level of PTMs in the male and female tissue during flower development, and what is the transcriptional status of the cells in SAM.