AUTHOR=Shen Yuan , Chi Yuhao , Lu Shun , Lu Huijuan , Shi Lei 

TITLE=Involvement of JMJ15 in the dynamic change of genome-wide H3K4me3 in response to salt stress

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2022.1009723

DOI=10.3389/fpls.2022.1009723

ISSN=1664-462X

ABSTRACT=<p>Post-translational histone modifications play important roles in regulating chromatin structure and transcriptional regulation. Histone 3 lysine 4 trimethylation (H3K4me3) is a prominent histone modification mainly associated with gene activation. Here we showed that a histone demethylase, JMJ15, belonging to KDM5/JARID group, is involved in salt stress response in <italic>Arabidopsis thaliana</italic>. <italic>Jmj15</italic> loss-of-function mutants displayed increased sensitivity to salt stress. Moreover, knockout of <italic>JMJ15</italic> impaired the salt responsive gene expression program and affected H3K4me3 levels of many stress-related genes under salt-stressed condition. Importantly, we demonstrated that <italic>JMJ15</italic> regulated the expression level of two WRKY transcription factors, <italic>WRKY46</italic> and <italic>WRKY70</italic>, which were negatively involved in abiotic stress tolerance. Furthermore, JMJ15 directly bound to and demethylated H3K4me3 mark in the promoter and coding regions of <italic>WRKY46</italic> and <italic>WRKY70</italic>, thereby repressing these two <italic>WRKY</italic> gene expression under salt stress. Overall, our study revealed a novel molecular function of the histone demethylase JMJ15 under salt stress in plants.</p>