B. Koukalova et al., MAINTENANCE OF THE INDUCED HYPOMETHYLATED STATE OF TOBACCO NUCLEAR REPETITIVE DNA-SEQUENCES IN THE COURSE OF PROTOPLAST AND PLANT-REGENERATION, Planta, 194(3), 1994, pp. 306-310
Previously, we established experimental conditions allowing us to indu
ce hypomethylation of tandem arrays of highly repetitive DNA sequences
in the Nicotiana tabacum L. nuclear genome (M. Bezdek et al. 1991, Pl
anta 184, 487-490). In this paper, we demonstrate that loci containing
the highly repetitive sequences of the HRS60 family can maintain the
induced hypomethylated state through protoplast regeneration, non-diff
erentiated callus growth, and plant regeneration. The hypomethylation,
induced with 5-azacytidine and monitored on these sequences, did not
substantially alter the capacity of calli to produce plants. It can be
concluded that, in contradistinction of multiple copies of transgenes
or ectopic genes which are usually recognized as methylation targets,
endogenous tandem repeats, such as the HRS60, present at 10(5) copies
in the genome, can escape de-novo methylation.