Priming is an adaptive strategy that improves the defensive capacity of plants. This
phenomenon is marked by an enhanced activation of induced defense mechanisms. Stimuli …

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies using DNA, RNA, or methylation
sequencing have impacted enormously on the life sciences. NGS is the choice for large …

Background Post-translational modifications of histones play important roles in maintaining
normal transcription patterns by directly or indirectly affecting the structural properties of the …

Plants have evolved an elaborate transcriptional machinery dedicated to eliciting sequence-
specific, chromatin-based gene silencing. Two Pol II-related, plant-specific RNA …

Unique among the known plant and animal viral suppressors of RNA silencing, the 2b
protein interacts directly with both small interfering RNA (siRNA) and ARGONAUTE1 (AGO1) …

Cytosine bases of the nuclear genome in higher plants are often extensively methylated.
Cytosine methylation has been implicated in the silencing of both transposable elements …

Sensing environmental changes and initiating a gene expression response are important for
plants as sessile autotrophs. The ability of epigenetic status to alter rapidly and reversibly …

The flowering plant germline is produced during the haploid gametophytic stage. Defining
the germline is complicated by the extreme reduction of the male and female gametophytes …

Transposable elements (TEs) were first discovered more than 50 years ago, but were totally
ignored for a long time. Over the last few decades they have gradually attracted increasing …

Epigenetics is the study of mitotically or meiotically heritable changes in gene function that
occur without a change in the DNA sequence. Interestingly, epigenetic changes can be …