Gene-body methylation (gbM) refers to an increased level of methylated cytosines specifically in a CG sequence context within genes. gbM is found in plant genes with intermediate expression level, which evolve slowly, and is often broadly conserved across millions of years of evolution. Intriguingly however, some plants lack gbM, and thus it remains unclear whether gbM has a function. In animals, there is support for a role of gbM in reducing erroneous transcription and transcription noise, but so far most studies in plants have tested for an effect of gbM on expression level, not noise. Here, we therefore tested whether gbM was associated with reduced expression noise in Arabidopsis thaliana, using single-cell transcriptome sequencing data from root quiescent centre cells. We find that gbM genes have lower expression noise levels than unmethylated genes. However, an analysis of covariance revealed that, if other genomic features are taken into account, this association disappears. Nonetheless, gbM genes were more consistently expressed across single-cell samples, supporting previous inference that gbM genes are constitutively expressed. Finally, we observed that fewer RNAseq reads map to introns of gbM genes than to introns of unmethylated genes, which indicates that gbM might be involved in reducing erroneous transcription by reducing intron retention.

Robert Horvath

Benjamin Laenen

Shohei Takuno

Tanja Slotte

Heredity

遗传是遗传学会的官方期刊。它涵盖了遗传学领域的广泛主题，因此论文必须解决期刊广泛读者感兴趣的概念或应用问题

Heredity is the official journal of the Genetics Society. It covers a wide range of topics in the field of genetics, and papers must address concepts or application issues that are of interest to a broad readership.

《Heredity》是遗传学会的官方期刊，涵盖遗传学领域的广泛主题。期刊所发表的论文需解决与遗传学相关的概念或应用问题，以吸引广泛的读者群体。

Single-cell expression noise and gene-body methylation in Arabidopsis thaliana

It is found that gbM genes have lower expression noise levels than unmethylated genes, and it is observed that fewer RNAseq reads map to introns of gBM genes than to intrONS of unmethylation genes, which indicates that g bM might be involved in reducing erroneous transcription by reducing intron retention.

Category	Quartile
生物学	2
生物学, 遗传学	2
生物学, 生态学	3
生物学, 进化生物学	3

Single-cell expression noise and gene-body methylation in Arabidopsis thaliana

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Journal Info

Category	Quartile
GENETICS & HEREDITY	2