Yuxing Zhou

Chromatin-Assisted Targeting Enables Precise DNA Methylation Editing in Plants

SunTag-NOVA, a SunTag-MQ1v editor adding TRBIP1 and an oligomerizing CHLAMY domain, methylates and silences FWA, FT and TMM in Arabidopsis without the genome-wide off-target methylation seen with TRBIP1 alone.

Stepwise DNA unwinding gates TnpB genome-editing activity

Ymu1 TnpB unwinds DNA via a long-lived partially unwound intermediate before a rarely stable open state; the WFR triple variant stabilizes both, boosting plant editing.

Multiple redundant mechanisms account for the majority of gene silencing downstream of DNA methylation

The paper shows that multiple redundant mechanisms account for most gene silencing downstream of DNA methylation, with loss of these pathways causing widespread derepression and genomic changes.