Prevention of early flowering by expression of FLOWERING LOCUS C requires methylation of histone H3 K36.

The study is interesting because this is the first demonstration on the role of H3K36 methylation in eukaryote development. It has been known from the literature that methylation of histone H3 K9 and K27 represses the expression of Flowering Locus C (FLC), which encodes a repressor of flowering in Arabidopsis; while methylation of H3K4 activates the expression of FLC. The result of this study shows that methylation of histone H3 K36 stimulates the expression of FLC lead to prevent early flowering. The methylation of H3K36 is a novel epigenetic memory code required for the expression of FLC in preventing early flowering. This study suggests for a further research on determination whether H3K36 methylation also has a critical function in other eukaryotes.

Trinh Tran