Exogenously overexpressed intronic long noncoding RNAs activate host gene expression by affecting histone modification in Arabidopsis

Involvement of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in the regulation of gene expression in cis has been well studied in eukaryotes but relatively little is known whether and how lncRNAs affect gene expression in tans. In Arabidopsis thaliana, COLDAIR, a previously reported lncRNA, is produced from the first intron of FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC), which encodes a repressor of flowering time. Our results indicated that the exogenously overexpressed COLDAIR enhances the expression of FLC in trans, resulting in a late-flowering phenotype. In 35S-COLDAIR lines, the enhanced expression of FLC is correlated with the down-regulation of the repressive histone mark H3K27me3 and with the up-regulation of the active histone mark H3K4me3 at the FLC chromatin. Furthermore, we demonstrated that overexpression of intronic lncRNAs from several other H3K27me3-enriched MADS-box genes also activates the expression of their host genes. This study suggests that the involvement of overexpressed intronic lncRNAs in gene activation may be conserved in H3K27me3-enriched genes in eukaryotes.