Qikun Liu, Ph.D.
Plant Developmental Epigenetics Group
Assistant Professor, School of Advanced Agricultural Sciences, Peking University
tel：
E-mail：qikunliu@pku.edu.cn
1 The epigenetic mechanism of plant gene regulation;
2 The development of tools for targeted spatial and temporal gene expression;
3 The application of gene regulating tools for improved agronomic traits.
DNA methylation is an evolutionarily conserved epigenetic modification, which is often considered as a repressive mark for gene expression. However, it is not uncommon to catch cases of DNA methylated, meanwhile well expressed, loci in both animals and plants. The expression of these DNA methylated genes and transposable elements did not occur by accident, but were programed in response to developmental and environmental cues for plant survival.
However, how genes escape the repressive effects of DNA methylation remains poorly understood. We have developed a genetic screen to identify key anti-silencing factors that are required for the expression of DNA methylated genes (Liu QK et al. Nat. Commun. 2020). Novel protein factors identified from the screen not only allowed us to gain insights into possible gene regulatory mechanisms involved in transcriptional derepression, but also to develop gene regulation tools for the improvements of valuable agronomic traits.
Lu XY, Zhang QY, Wang ZJ, Cheng XZ, Yan HR, Cai SY, Zhang HW, Liu QK. (2025) Development of an inducible DNA barcoding system to understand lineage changes inArabidopsisregeneration. Dev. Cell, 60: 305-319.
He YT, Xu L, Liu QK. (2025) The cellular epigenetic blueprint of plant regeneration. Curr. Opin. Plant Biol., 88: 102784.
Liu QK, Huang G, Zhang ZQ, Lin ZL, Deng X, Dong XM, Liu ZP, Wang Z, Zhang YJ, Jing HC, Chong K, Cao XF. (2025) Forage crop research in the modern age. Adv. Sci., 12: 2415631.
Xue Y, Cao XF et al., Zhu JK, Liu QK. (2025) Epigenetics in the modern era of crop improvements. Sci. China-Life Sci., 68: 1570-1609.
Li JW, Zhang QY, Wang ZJ, Liu QK.(2024) The roles of epigenetic regulators in plant regeneration: exploring patterns amidst complex conditions. Plant Physiol., 194: 2022-2038.
Liu QK, Ton J, Manavella PA, Komiya R, Zhai JX. (2024) Focus on epigenetics. Plant Physiol., 194: 1925-1928.
Wang ZJ, Zhang WC, Zhou YY, Zhang QY, Kulkarni KP, Melmaiee K, Tian YW, Dong M, Gao ZX, Su YN, Yu H, Xu GH, Li YD, He H, Liu QK, Sun HY. (2024) Genetic and epigenetic signatures for improved breeding of cultivated blueberry. Hortic. Res., 11: uhae138.
Zhang CM, Tang YJ, Tang SJ, Chen L, Li T, Yuan HD, Xu YJ, Zhou YY, Zhang SB, Wang JL, Wen HY, Jiang WB, Pang YZ, Deng X, Cao XF, Zhou JH, Song XW, Liu QK. (2024) An inducible CRISPR activation tool for accelerating plant regeneration. Plant Commun., 5: 100823.
Zhang QY, Wang ZJ, Lu XY, Yan HR, Zhang HW, He H, Bischof S, Harris CJ, Liu QK. (2023) DDT-RELATED PROTEIN4–IMITATION SWITCH alters nucleosome distribution to relieve transcriptional silencing in Arabidopsis. Plant Cell, 35: 3109-3126.
Qiyan Zhang, Han Qiao, Jiawen Li, Wenzhe Yu, Xuanzhi Cheng, Zejia Wang, Yiting He, Jiajie Fu, Tianyu Zhou, Hui Chen
