ANCHOR: A Technical Approach to Monitor Single-Copy Locus Localization in Planta

Together with local chromatin structure, gene accessibility, and the presence oftranscription factors, gene positioning is implicated in gene expression regulation.Although the basic mechanisms are expected to be conserved in eukaryotes, less isknown about the role of gene positioning in plant cells, mainly due to the lack of a highlyresolutive approach. In this study, we adapted the use of theANCHOR system to performreal-time single locus detectionin planta. ANCHOR is a DNA-labeling tool derived fromthe chromosome partitioning system found in many bacterialspecies. We demonstratedits suitability to monitor a single locusin plantaand used this approach to track chromatinmobility during cell differentiation inArabidopsis thalianaroot epidermal cells. Finally, wediscussed the potential of this approach to investigate therole of gene positioning duringtranscription and DNA repair in plants