The protein kinase TOUSLED is required for maintenance of transcriptional gene silencing in Arabidopsis

TOUSLED-like kinases (TLKs) are highly conserved in plants and animals, but direct evidence linking TLKs and transcriptional gene silencing is lacking. We isolated two new alleles of TOUSLED (TSL). Mutations of TSL in ros1 reactivate the transcriptionally silent 35S-NPTII transgene and the transcriptionally silent endogenous loci TSI (TRANSCRIPTIONAL SILENCING INFORMATION). Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) analysis shows that histone H3Lys9 dimethylation is decreased in the reactivated transgene and endogenous TSI loci in the tsl ros1 mutant. However, there is no change in DNA methylation in the affected loci. Western blot and ChIP assay suggest that TSL might not be responsible for histone H3Ser10 phosphorylation. The tsl seedlings were more sensitive to DNA damage reagent methyl methanesulphonate and UV-B light. Our results provide direct evidence for a crucial role of the TOUSLED protein kinase in the maintenance of transcriptional gene silencing in some genomic regions in a DNA-methylation-independent manner in Arabidopsis.