Epigenetics and transgenerational memory in plants under heat stress
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REVIEW ARTICLE
Epigenetics and transgenerational memory in plants under heat stress Arun K. Shanker1
•
Divya Bhanu1 • M. Maheswari1
Received: 19 September 2020 / Accepted: 25 November 2020 Ó Indian Society for Plant Physiology 2020
Abstract The concept that plants are cognitive and intelligent organisms capable of learning and retaining memory may sound alien to most plant scientists mainly because of the paucity of literature in the subject and also due to the complexity of the subject. Plants are sessile organisms and so have intricate physiological, biochemical and molecular mechanisms by which they react to abiotic stress and it is possible that epigenetics has an important role in response to stress stimuli in plants. Heat stress is a consequence of the changing climate now and can affect plant growth and productivity in agriculture crops. Heat stress induced epigenetic modifications caused by DNA methylation, histone restructuring, chromatin remodeling is known to induct memory in plants that can be retained in future generations to counter heat stress effectively. Expression of genes to a large extant are influenced by the chromatin environment and there are states of chromatin dynamics that can dictate the specific genes that are stress responsive for resultant adaptation to heat stress. In this minireview we will discuss on transgenerational memory and the regulation of responses to heat by epigenetic modifications such as DNA methylation, modifications and variations in histones and histone chaperones, chromatin remodeling, small RNA and long noncoding RNAs. Keywords Epigenetics Transgenerational memory Heat stress Histone modifications Chromatin remodeling
& M. Maheswari [email protected] 1
ICAR—Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture, Santoshnagar, Saidabad P.O., Hyderabad 5000059, India
Introduction All the sectors of agriculture namely crop production, livestock, poultry, fisheries and other sectors are very likely to be affected in a significant way by changing climate. The impact is envisaged to be different in different regions and also will vary according to the sector. In general, plant growth and crop production will be affected by factors like heat, drought, cold, salinity and other stresses caused due to changing climate, resulting in yield losses. The special IPCC report (IPCC 2018) says that after the industrial era, the mean global temperatures have increased by abouth 1 °C and warning due to anthropogenic activities is contributing to about 0.2 °C to the mean global temperatures on a decadal timeline. It is also projected that at the present rate of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, mean global warming will be increased by about 1.5 °C between 2030 and 2052. This calls for an urgent action to safeguard food security in terms of sustained and increased food production to feed the fast-growing world population. It is predicted that an increase in one degree C in global mean temperature can significantly reduce the global mean yields of many crops. The yield redu
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