Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 Controls the Embryo-to-Seedling Phase Transition

Abstract

Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) is a key regulator of epigenetic states catalyzing histone H3 lysine 27 trimethylation (H3K27me3), a repressive chromatin mark. PRC2 composition is conserved from humans to plants, but the function of PRC2 during the early stage of plant life is unclear beyond the fact that it is required for the development of endosperm, a nutritive tissue that supports embryo growth. Circumventing the requirement of PRC2 in endosperm allowed us to generate viable homozygous null mutants for FERTILIZATION INDEPENDENT ENDOSPERM ( FIE), which is the single Arabidopsis homolog of Extra Sex Combs, an indispensable component of Drosophila and mammalian PRC2. Here we show that H3K27me3 deposition is abolished genome-wide in fie mutants demonstrating the essential function of PRC2 in placing this mark in plants as in animals. In contrast to animals, we find that PRC2 function is not required for initial body plan formation in Arabidopsis. Rather, our results show that fie mutant seeds exhibit enhanced dormancy and germination defects, indicating a deficiency in terminating the embryonic phase. After germination, fie mutant seedlings switch to generative development that is not sustained, giving rise to neoplastic, callus-like structures. Further genome-wide studies showed that only a fraction of PRC2 targets are transcriptionally activated in fie seedlings and that this activation is accompanied in only a few cases with deposition of H3K4me3, a mark associated with gene activity and considered to act antagonistically to H3K27me3. Up-regulated PRC2 target genes were found to act at different hierarchical levels from transcriptional master regulators to a wide range of downstream targets. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that PRC2-mediated regulation represents a robust system controlling developmental phase transitions, not only from vegetative phase to flowering but also especially from embryonic phase to the seedling stage.

Author Summary

Epigenetic regulation of gene expression through modifications of histone tails is fundamental for growth and development of multicellular organisms. The trimethylation of lysine 27 of histone 3 (H3K27me3) is the landmark of Polycomb Repressive Complex2 (PRC2) function and is associated with gene repression. Here we present the development of a genetic system to generate homozygous null mutants of Arabidopsis PRC2. A first major finding is that H3K27me3 is globally lost in these mutants. Surprisingly, we found that initial body plant organization and embryo development is largely independent of PRC2 action, which is in sharp contrast to embryonic lethality of PRC2 mutants in animals. However, we show here that PRC2 is required to switch from embryonic to seedling phase, and mutant seeds showed enhanced dormancy and germination defects. Indeed, many genes controlling seed maturation and dormancy are marked by H3K27me3 and are upregulated upon loss of PRC2. The invention of seed dormancy of land plants is regarded as one of the major reasons for the evolutionary success of flowering plants, and the here-discovered key role of PRC2 during the developmental phase transition from embryo to seedling growth reveals the adaptation of conserved molecular mechanisms to carry out new functions.