Abstract
Chromatin organization in eukaryotes is highly dynamic, playing fundamental roles in regulating diverse nuclear processes including DNA replication, transcription, and repair. Thus, the analysis of chromatin organization is of great importance for the elucidation of chromatin-mediated biological processes. Immunostaining coupled with imaging is one of the most powerful tools for chromatin analysis at the cellular level. However, in plants, it is sometimes technically challenging to apply this method due to the inaccessibility of certain cell types and/or poor penetration of the reagents into plant tissues and cells. To circumvent these limitations, we developed a highly efficient protocol enabling the analysis of chromatin modifications and nuclear organization at the single-cell level with high resolution in whole-mount plant tissues. The main procedure consists of five steps: (1) tissue fixation; (2) dissection and embedding; (3) tissue processing; (4) antibody incubation; and (5) imaging. This protocol has been simplified for the processing of multiple samples without the need for laborious tissue sectioning. Additionally, it preserves cellular morphology and chromatin organization, allowing comparative analyses of chromatin organization between different cell types or developmental stages. This protocol was successfully used for various tissues of different plant species, including Arabidopsis thaliana, Oryza sativa (rice), and Zea mays (maize). Importantly, this method is very useful to analyze poorly accessible tissues, such as female meiocytes, gametophytes, and embryos.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
References
She W, Grimanelli D, Rutowicz K et al (2013) Chromatin reprogramming during the somatic-to-reproductive cell fate transition in plants. Development 140:4008–4019
She W, Baroux C (2015) Chromatin dynamics in pollen mother cells underpin a common scenario at the somatic-to-reproductive fate transition of both the male and female lineages in Arabidopsis. Front Plant Sci 6:294
Tessadori F, Schulkes RK, van Driel R et al (2007) Light-regulated large-scale reorganization of chromatin during the floral transition in Arabidopsis. Plant J 50:848–857
Rosa S, Ntoukakis V, Ohmido N et al (2014) Cell differentiation and development in Arabidopsis are associated with changes in histone dynamics at the single-cell level. Plant Cell 26:4821–4833
van Zanten M, Koini MA, Geyer R et al (2011) Seed maturation in Arabidopsis thaliana is characterized by nuclear size reduction and increased chromatin condensation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 108:20219–20224
Kolodziejek I, Koziol-Lipinska J, Waleza M et al (2007) Aspects of programmed cell death during early senescence of barley leaves: possible role of nitric oxide. Protoplasma 232:97–108
Ay N, Irmler K, Fischer A et al (2009) Epigenetic programming via histone methylation at WRKY53 controls leaf senescence in Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant J 58:333–346
Tessadori F, van Zanten M, Pavlova P et al (2009) Phytochrome B and histone deacetylase 6 control light-induced chromatin compaction in Arabidopsis thaliana. PLoS Genet 5:e1000638
van Zanten M, Tessadori F, McLoughlin R et al (2010) Photoreceptors CRYPTOCHROME2 and phytochrome B control chromatin compaction in Arabidopsis. Plant Physiol 154:1686–1696
Bourbousse C, Mestiri I, Zabulon G et al (2015) Light signaling controls nuclear architecture reorganization during seedling establishment. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 112:E2836–E2844
Strahl BD, Allis CD (2000) The language of covalent histone modifications. Nature 403:41–45
Jenuwein T, Allis CD (2001) Translating the histone code. Science 293:1074–1080
Hübner MR, Eckersley-Maslin MA, Spector DL (2013) Chromatin organization and transcriptional regulation. Curr Opin Genet Dev 23:89–95
Rosa S, Shaw P (2013) Insights into chromatin structure and dynamics in plants. Biology 2:1378–1410
Park PJ (2009) ChIP-seq: advantages and challenges of a maturing technology. Nat Rev Genet 10:669–680
Liu C, Weigel D (2015) Chromatin in 3D: progress and prospects for plants. Genome Biol 16:170
Friml J, Benková E, Mayer U et al (2003) Automated whole mount localisation techniques for plant seedlings. Plant J 34:115–124
Sauer M, Paciorek T, Benková E et al (2006) Immunocytochemical techniques for whole-mount in situ protein localization in plants. Nat Protoc 1:98–103
She W, Grimanelli D, Baroux C (2014) An efficient method for quantitative, single-cell analysis of chromatin modification and nuclear architecture in whole-mount ovules in Arabidopsis. J Vis Exp 88:e51530
Escobar-Guzmán R, Rodríguez-Leal D, Vielle-Calzada JP et al (2015) Whole-mount immunolocalization to study female meiosis in Arabidopsis. Nat Protoc 10:1535–1542
Pasternak T, Tietz O, Rapp K et al (2015) Protocol: an improved and universal procedure for whole-mount immunolocalization in plants. Plant Methods 11:50
Bass HW, Marshall WF, Sedat JW et al (1997) Telomeres cluster de novo before the initiation of synapsis: a three-dimensional spatial analysis of telomere positions before and during meiotic prophase. J Cell Biol 137:5–18
Pillot M, Baroux C, Vazquez MA et al (2010) Embryo and endosperm inherit distinct chromatin and transcriptional states from the female gametes in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell 22:307–320
De Lucas PL, Turco GM et al (2016) Transcriptional regulation of Arabidopsis Polycomb repressive complex 2 coordinates cell type proliferation and differentiation. Plant Cell 28:2616–2631
McCaw ME, Wallace JG, Albert PS et al (2016) Fast-flowering mini-maize: seed to seed in 60 days. Genetics 204:35–42
Brady J (1965) A simple technique for making very fine, durable dissecting needles by sharpening tungsten wire electrolytically. Bull World Health Organ 32:143–144
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the University of Zürich, the Swiss National Foundation and, in part, DuPont-Pioneer. We are thankful to Christof Eichenberger, Valeria Gagliardini, Arturo Bolanos, Matthias Philipp, Anja Frey, and Peter Kopf for general lab support, and to Karl Huwiler and Christian Frey for plant care.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Science+Business Media LLC
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
She, W., Baroux, C., Grossniklaus, U. (2018). Cell-Type Specific Chromatin Analysis in Whole-Mount Plant Tissues by Immunostaining. In: Bemer, M., Baroux, C. (eds) Plant Chromatin Dynamics. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1675. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-7318-7_25
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-7318-7_25
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-7317-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-7318-7
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols