Meeting Abstract

S2-1.4  Friday, Jan. 4  Natural Epigenetic Variation in Arabidopsis RICHARDS, Eric J*; HENKHAUS, Natalie; ANAND, Ila S.; Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research; Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research; Cornell University ejr77@cornell.edu

The accumulating evidence documenting the prevalence of stable inherited epigenetic alleles, which can be transmitted from one organismal generation to the next independent of strict control by genetic variation, forces a re-examination of the role that epigenetic variation might play in a ecological and evolutionary context. In a survey for natural variation in transcriptional activity and cytosine methylation, we undercovered epigenetic variation in the Sadhu retroposon family in the flowering plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. I will present an update on our work charting the genetic behavior of Sadhu element epigenetic alleles, as well as an investigation of the impact that this epigenetic variation exerts at both the genomic and phenotypic level.