The research led by @c-jake-harris.bsky.social's group in collaboration with @hendersi.bsky.social's lab, has uncovered a new way to reprogramme plant genomes using ‘epigenetic engineering’ to change gene activity without altering the underlying DNA sequence.

tinyurl.com/5n88wrju

Thanks Sjon!!

And last but definitely not least, a BIG thank you to the reviewers - fair, respectful, insightful. Genuinely thank you, whoever you are 🙏

I also want to send a big shout out and thank you to Jason @gardiner-lab.bsky.social, who helped me get set up with SunTag and SDG2 while we were both still postdocs in the Jacobsen lab.

And also a huge thank you to @jacobsenucla.bsky.social , where the discovery that SDG2 activates gene expression was first made by his then PhD student, Ash, and for allowing me to work on and then further develop the system in my own lab.

Also huge thank you to @hendersi.bsky.social and his group, was a fantastic collaborative effort!

This was a big team effort, I want to thank in particular the first authors Jenia and Vanda!

To overcome this, we turned to the mammalian H3K4 methyltransferase, PRDM9. Not only does PRDM9 function brilliantly to activate gene expression, it also results in less off-target. Perhaps the orthogonality of PRDM9 means nothing to recruit /stabilise at non-targeted plant chromatin..?

All peachy right? Well there is a catch, SunTag-SDG2 also causes some off-target effects, which manifest as increased background noise in H3K4me3 ChIP-seq datasets.

Ok what about modulating something other than gene expression, like crossovers? Here, we teamed up with @hendersi.bsky.social , targeting SunTag-SDG2 to an entire centromere, finding that this unlocked recombination in surrounding regions that are normally highly suppressed. Hello plant breeding…

Next we targeted a ‘useful’ gene, namely the plant resistance gene, SNC1. We show by modifying the epigenome at this single locus, you can generate plants with enhanced resistance to pathogens. (big thanks to @jurriaanton.bsky.social group for getting us set up with this assay!)

By coupling the CRISPR/dCas9 based SunTag system with the plant H3K4me3 methyltransferase, SDG2, we show that H3K4me3 can activate the expression of a gene that is typically silent, FWA. Works super well, and honestly slightly unexpected as DNA methylation is though to be the main player for FWA...

H3K4me3 is one of the most highly conserved and well-studied chromatin marks. Yet, its function remains debated. Spoiler alert – our work provides more pieces of evidence to stack on the pile in favour of it having a direct instructive effect on transcription.

Wow congrats! Awesome news and well deserved!!

Welcome @jsontgerath.bsky.social and @hartman-plantlab.com looking forward to many memory related collabs in the future!

Awesome. Just awesome 👏👏