As per a study published in the journal Nature Communications, in order to reveal the genome structure of rice, Chinese scientists have mapped the epigenome of 20 rice varieties, according to Xinhua’s news report.
Researchers from Huazhong Agricultural University, a multi-disciplinary comprehensive university in Wuhan, collected more than 500 groups of genome data.
According to the news report, it covered 20 representative rice varieties and defined 15 chromatin states in the epigenome maps.
The comparison of the epigenomic maps of the rice varieties reveals that epigenetic modification tends to occur in the heterochromatin region of the grain.
Some important epigenetic differences between Indica and Japonica rice were also found in the study.
The research by Chinese scientists provides important data for the research of rice’s environmental adaptability and variety differentiation.