SRA

We uncover distinct DNA methylation dynamics over genes and repeat sequences during early plant life in Arabidopsis. While gene body methylation, which is restricted to CG sites and concerns 20-30% of all genes is detected at all stages examined, it typically fluctuates over a few CGs, with no coherent pattern. In contrast, transposable elements and their relics as well as other repeat sequences, have consistently high methylation levels at CGs and show increasing CHG and especially CHH methylation during embryogenesis. Remarkably, methylation reaches 100% at many individual CHH sites in the mature embryo, compared to the 10-20% methylation usually observed at CHH sites in seedlings or adult plants. Moreover, the progressive increase in CHG and CHH methylation in embryos mirrors the loss of DNA methylation at CG and CHG sites in the endosperm, suggesting transfer of information from the endosperm to the embryo, presumably in the form of small RNAs. Finally, impairing the embryo to seedling transition through loss of PRC2 activity results in the persistence of high CHH methylation levels after germination and specifically over sequences that are targeted by the RNA-directed DNA methylation (RdDM) machinery. Collectively, our findings indicate a lack of extensive resetting of DNA methylation patterns during early plant life and point instead to an important role of RdDM in targeting DNA methylation to transposable element and other repeat sequences in all cells of the mature embryo. Overall design: Bisulfite sequencing of mature embryos and early seedlings in wild type and fie mutants and small RNA-seq from 10 day wildtype seedling.