Position-dependent effects of cytosine methylation on FWA expression in Arabidopsis thaliana

Gene expression can be modulated by epigenetic modifications to chromatin, and variants of the same locus distinguished by fixed, heritable epigenetic differences are known as epialleles. DNA methylation at cytosines is a prominent epigenetic modification, particularly in plant genomes, that can modulate gene expression. There are several examples where epialleles are associated with differentially methylated regions that affect the expression of overlapping or close-by genes. However, there are also many differentially methylated regions that have not been assigned a biological function despite their proximity to genes. We investigated the positional importance of DNA methylation at the FWA (FLOWERING WAGENINGEN) locus in Arabidopsis thaliana, a paradigm for stable epialleles. We show that cytosine methylation can be established not only over the well-characterized SINE-derived repeat elements that overlap with the transcription start site, but also in more distal promoter regions. FWA silencing, however, is most effective when methylation covers the transcription start site.