An Information-theoretic framework for the peloric Lcyc epiallele in Linaria vulgaris: a synthetic demonstration
5 affiliations
- 1Department of Nutrition, Centro de Edafología y Biología Aplicada del Segura, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Spanish National Research Council) (CEBAS-CSIC) Institute
- 2Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of the Basque Country
- 3Department of Cell Biology and Histology, Faculty of Medicine and Nursing, University of the Basque Country
- 4Biobizkaia Health Research Institute
- 5Ikerbasque: The Basque Foundation for Science
Abstract
Introduction: The peloric form of Linaria vulgaris , first described by Linnaeus in the eighteenth century, is a classical example of heritable epigenetic variation associated with a major change in floral morphology. Wild-type flowers exhibit bilateral symmetry, whereas peloric flowers exhibit radial symmetry. This transition is associated with transcriptional silencing and increased DNA methylation of Lcyc, a CYCLOIDEA-like gene involved in dorsoventral floral development. Although the molecular association between the Lcyc epiallelic state and floral architecture is well established, a general framework for expressing differences between such methylation states in information-theoretic units has not been developed.
Methods: We developed an information-theoretic framework in which potentially methylatable cytosines are represented as Bernoulli variables. Because experimental cytosine-level count data for the natural Lcyc epiallele were not available for direct reanalysis, the numerical demonstration uses a synthetic, literature-constrained methylation matrix designed to reproduce the qualitative pattern reported for wild-type and peloric Lcyc . The framework quantifies maximum binary capacity, summed site-wise Shannon entropy, directional Kullback–Leibler divergence, summed site-wise Jensen–Shannon divergence, context-specific contributions, and site-wise dimensionality.
Results: In the synthetic demonstration matrix, maximum binary capacity was 120 bits, summed site-wise entropy was 39.85 bits for the modeled wild-type state and 101.32 bits for the modeled peloric state, directional Kullback–Leibler divergence was 260.30 bits, and summed site-wise Jensen–Shannon divergence was 42.31 bits. These numerical values characterize the illustrative matrix under its specified assumptions and should not be interpreted as empirical estimates of the natural Lcyc epiallele. Rather, they demonstrate how cytosine-level methylation profiles can be translated into measures of uncertainty, statistical distinguishability, methylation-context contribution, and the distribution of divergence across a locus.
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BibTeX
@article{fuente2026informationtheoretic,
title = {{An Information-theoretic framework for the peloric Lcyc epiallele in Linaria vulgaris: a synthetic demonstration}},
author = {Ildefonso M. De la Fuente and José Carrasco-Pujante and Leire Legarreta and Iker Malaina and Gorka Pérez-Yarza and Luis Martínez and Jesús M. Cortés and José I. López},
journal = {Frontiers in Plant Science},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3389/fpls.2026.1915131},
url = {https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2026.1915131/full},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - An Information-theoretic framework for the peloric Lcyc epiallele in Linaria vulgaris: a synthetic demonstration
AU - Ildefonso M. De la Fuente
AU - José Carrasco-Pujante
AU - Leire Legarreta
AU - Iker Malaina
AU - Gorka Pérez-Yarza
AU - Luis Martínez
AU - Jesús M. Cortés
AU - José I. López
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/16
JO - Frontiers in Plant Science
DO - 10.3389/fpls.2026.1915131
UR - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2026.1915131/full
AB - Introduction: The peloric form of Linaria vulgaris , first described by Linnaeus in the eighteenth century, is a classical example of heritable epigenetic variation associated with a major change in floral morphology. Wild-type flowers exhibit bilateral symmetry, whereas peloric flowers exhibit radial symmetry. This transition is associated with transcriptional silencing and increased DNA methylation of Lcyc, a CYCLOIDEA-like gene involved in dorsoventral floral development. Although the molecular association between the Lcyc epiallelic state and floral architecture is well established, a general framework for expressing differences between such methylation states in information-theoretic units has not been developed. Methods: We developed an information-theoretic framework in which potentially methylatable cytosines are represented as Bernoulli variables. Because experimental cytosine-level count data for the natural Lcyc epiallele were not available for direct reanalysis, the numerical demonstration uses a synthetic, literature-constrained methylation matrix designed to reproduce the qualitative pattern reported for wild-type and peloric Lcyc . The framework quantifies maximum binary capacity, summed site-wise Shannon entropy, directional Kullback–Leibler divergence, summed site-wise Jensen–Shannon divergence, context-specific contributions, and site-wise dimensionality. Results: In the synthetic demonstration matrix, maximum binary capacity was 120 bits, summed site-wise entropy was 39.85 bits for the modeled wild-type state and 101.32 bits for the modeled peloric state, directional Kullback–Leibler divergence was 260.30 bits, and summed site-wise Jensen–Shannon divergence was 42.31 bits. These numerical values characterize the illustrative matrix under its specified assumptions and should not be interpreted as empirical estimates of the natural Lcyc epiallele. Rather, they demonstrate how cytosine-level methylation profiles can be translated into measures of uncertainty, statistical distinguishability, methylation-context contribution, and the distribution of divergence across a locus.
SN - 1664-462X
ER -