# Epimutation prediction

Cytosine methylation at plant CG sites is gained and lost spontaneously, far faster than DNA point mutation. Until now a single site's steady state could only be estimated from the epigenome itself, leaving open whether it is written in DNA or carried by chromatin. REED, built on the NTv3 backbone, predicts every cytosine's methylation from 10 kb of sequence, and that prediction is the site's set point; in Arabidopsis pedigrees, the rice germline and a 330-year-old poplar, the direction and the rate-implied equilibrium of measured epimutations followed it.

Cytosine methylation at plant CG sites is gained and lost spontaneously, far faster than DNA point mutation. Until now a single site's steady state could only be estimated from the epigenome itself, leaving open whether it is written in DNA or carried by chromatin. REED, built on the NTv3 backbone, predicts every cytosine's methylation from 10 kb of sequence, and that prediction is the site's set point; in Arabidopsis pedigrees, the rice germline and a 330-year-old poplar, the direction and the rate-implied equilibrium of measured epimutations followed it.