2. Academic Validation
  3. CK2 kinase-PRC2 signalling regulates genome-wide H3K27 trimethylation and transduces prolonged cold exposure into epigenetic cold memory in plants

CK2 kinase-PRC2 signalling regulates genome-wide H3K27 trimethylation and transduces prolonged cold exposure into epigenetic cold memory in plants

  • Nat Plants. 2025 Aug;11(8):1572-1590. doi: 10.1038/s41477-025-02054-1.
Xiaolin Zeng # 1 2 3,  Zheng Gao # 1 4,  Jiabin Gu # 1,  Guochen Qin 5,  Yang Ou 1,  Zhaoxu Gao 1,  Pengcheng Wang 2 6,  Yuehui He 7 8 9
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences & State Key Laboratory of Wheat Improvement, School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China.
  • 2 Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shanghai, China.
  • 3 Department of Chemistry, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
  • 4 Shanghai Key Laboratory of Plant Functional Genomics and Resources, Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden, Shanghai, China.
  • 5 Peking University Institute of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Shandong Laboratory of Advanced Agricultural Sciences in Weifang, Shandong, China.
  • 6 Institute of Advanced Biotechnology and School of Medicine, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China.
  • 7 Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences & State Key Laboratory of Wheat Improvement, School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China. yhhe@pku.edu.cn.
  • 8 Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shanghai, China. yhhe@pku.edu.cn.
  • 9 Peking University Institute of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Shandong Laboratory of Advanced Agricultural Sciences in Weifang, Shandong, China. yhhe@pku.edu.cn.
  • # Contributed equally.
PMID: 40750695 DOI: 10.1038/s41477-025-02054-1
Abstract

Polycomb protein-mediated transcriptional repression plays a crucial role in the regulation of responses to environmental stimuli in multicellular eukaryotes, but the underlying signalling events remain elusive. During Arabidopsis vernalization, prolonged cold exposure results in the formation of a Polycomb-repressed domain at the potent floral repressor FLC to confer its stable silencing upon temperature rise or epigenetic 'memory of prolonged cold', enabling the Plants to bloom in spring. Here we report that the evolutionarily conserved Casein Kinase CK2 phosphorylates and thus stabilizes histone 3 lysine-27 (H3K27) methyltransferases (PRC2 subunits) to promote H3K27 trimethylation throughout the Arabidopsis genome. We found that prolonged cold induces progressive CK2 accumulation, leading to a gradual accumulation of cellular PRC2. We further show that the cold-CK2-PRC2 signalling promotes increasing PRC2 enrichment on FLC chromatin during prolonged cold exposure as well as post-cold PRC2 spreading across FLC to establish a Polycomb-repressed domain for FLC repression in warmth. Thus, this signalling cascade transduces prolonged cold exposure, but not cold spells, into epigenetic memory of prolonged cold in warmth during vernalization. CK2 phosphorylation motifs are widely present in H3K27 methyltransferases from Plants and Animals. Our study reveals a new layer of control of PRC2 activity in multicellular organisms.

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