Effects of different concentrations Cd stress on DNA methylation of Tagetes patula

With the speeding up of humans activity and industrialization process, heavy metal pollution has caused serious harm to the environment. In the present study, the methylation-sensitive amplified polymorphism (MSAP) technique was employed to analyze the DNA methylation in Tagetes patula under different concentrations of cadmium(Cd) in pots experiment. The results showed that the genomic MSAP rate of T. patula was 24%, 30%, 35% and 41%, and the total methylation rate of T. patula was 20%, 23%, 25% and 27%, respectively, when treated with the different concetrations of Cd2+(0, 50, 250, 500 mgkg-1). The results indicated that the total methylation level of DNA increased with the increase of Cd2+ concentration. Moreover, in regards of the change pattern of DNA methylation, the denove methylation rates were 10%, 10% and 11%, respectively, under stress of 50, 250 and 500 mgkg-1 Cd2+, which indicated that the denove methylation was the main methylation pattern. In summay, the current study provides a theoretical reference for revealing the variation trend of heavy metal stress on plant DNA methylation and the mechanism of plant tolerance to heavy metal stress.