Plant Epigenetics

Hardback  304 pages, 4 illustrations.  ISBN 1405129778      £100.00

This volume provides a comprehensive overview epigenetic mechanisms and biological processes in plants, illustrating the wider relevance of this research to work in other plant science areas and on non-plant systems. It discusses recent advances in our knowledge of basic mechanisms and molecular components that control transcriptional and post-transcriptional silencing, an understanding of which is essential for plant researchers who use transgenic lines for stable expression of a recombinant construct or for targeted inactivation of an endogenous gene. These aspects should be of special interest to the agricultural industry.

The volume illustrates the relevance of epigenetic control systems to gene regulation and plant development, examining paramutation, genomic imprinting and microRNA-based gene regulation mechanisms. Finally, it demonstrates the significance of epigenetic systems to viral defence and genome organisation.

The volume is directed at researchers and professionals in plant molecular genetics, plant biochemistry and plant developmental biology.

Contents

• 1. Transgene silencing Ann Depicker and Matthew Sanders, University of Gent, Belgium and Peter Meyer, Centre for Plant Sciences, University of Leeds, UK
• 2. RNA interference: double-stranded RNAs and the processing machinery Jan Kooter, Department of Genetics, Vrije University Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• 3. RNA-mediated DNA methylation Marjori Matzke, Tatsuo Kanno, Bruno Huettel and Estelle Jaligot, Gregor Mendel-Institut, Vienna, Austria; M. Florian Mette, IPK Gatersleben, Germany; David Kreil, Department of Genetics/Inference Group, University of Cambridge, UK; Lucia Daxinger, Philipp Rovina, Werner Aufsatz and Antonius Matzke, Gregor Mendel-Institut, Vienna, Austria
• 4. Heterochromatin and the control of gene silencing in plants Gunter Reuter, A Fischer and I Hofmann, Martin Luther University, Institute for Genetics, Halle, Germany
• 5. When alleles meet: paramutation Marieke Louwers, Max Haring and Maike Stam, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• 6. Genomic imprinting in plants: a predominantly maternal affair Ueli Grossniklaus, Institute of Plant Biology, University of Zürich, Switzerland
• 7. Nucleolar dominance and rRNA gene dosage control: a paradigm for transcriptional regulation via an epigenetic on/off switch Nuno Neves and Wanda Viegas, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Monte da Caparica, Portugal and Craig Pikaard, Biology Department, Washington University, Missouri, USA
• 8. Virus induced gene silencing Tamas Dalmay, School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, UK
• 9. MicroRNAs: micro-managing the plant genome Sandra Floyd and John Bowman, Section of Plant Biology, University of California at Davis