Activating stress memory: eustressors as potential tools for plant breeding

Abstract

Plants are continuously exposed to stress conditions, such that they have developed sophisticated and elegant survival strategies, which are reflected in their phenotypic plasticity, priming capacity, and memory acquisition. Epigenetic mechanisms play a critical role in modulating gene expression and stress responses, allowing malleability, reversibility, stability, and heritability of favourable phenotypes to enhance plant performance. Considering the urgency to improve our agricultural system because of going impacting climate change, potential and sustainable strategies rely on the controlled use of eustressors, enhancing desired characteristics and yield and shaping stress tolerance in crops. However, for plant breeding purposes is necessary to focus on the use of eustressors capable of establishing stable epigenetic marks to generate a transgenerational memory to stimulate a priming state in plants to face the changing environment.

Role of biostimulants in mitigating the effects of climate change on crop performance

“…The expression can be studied along with epigenomics which deals with quantifying changes in epigenetic marks following environmental stress i.e., DNA methylation, post-translational histone modifications, and non-coding RNAs (siRNAs and miRNAs). Any change in epigenetic marks due to the effect of BSts and its correlation to the establishment of stable and transgenerational memory of stress response through plant BSts needs to be explored (Villagómez-Aranda et al, 2022). High-throughput omics tools, including phenomics, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and multi-omics approaches (Sahoo et al, 2022), can provide unique opportunities for precise decoding of the mode of action of BSts on the crop.…”

Epigenetic variation: A major player in facilitating plant fitness under changing environmental conditions

“…In rice, flowering time is crucial for seed set which is regulated by histone methyltransferase (HMTase) genes such as SET DOMAIN GENE 724 ( SDG724 ) that promotes flowering by methylating the histone H3 lysine 36 (H3K36) ( Sun et al, 2012 ; Gupta and Salgotra, 2022 ). The useful epigenetic diversity in many other crops has been collated well in recent review articles ( Varotto et al, 2020 ; Kakoulidou et al, 2021 ; Alfalahi et al, 2022 ; Gill et al, 2022 ; Guarino et al, 2022 ; Gupta and Salgotra 2022 ; Sharma et al, 2022 ; Villagómez-Aranda et al, 2022 ). All these studies suggest that the identification of agronomic traits regulated through epigenetics will provide new opportunities for crop improvement and domestication.…”

“…Although many instances of spontaneous epi-allelic diversity have been documented, efforts are also underway to induce epigenetic diversity in crops. In this context, ‘Eustressors’ that involve low-dose exposures to stress factors to trigger positive responses in plants through effects on their physiology, biochemistry, genetics, and epigenetics have emerged as potent breeding tools ( Villagómez-Aranda et al, 2022 ). This is an emerging area of research and future efforts aimed at identifying eustressors capable of generating stable epigenetic marks, understanding mechanisms leading to trans-generational memory to stimulate a priming state and their adaptability potential are essential before they can be used to induce epigenetic variability for the advancement of important agronomic traits in crop plants.…”

Epigenetic Mechanisms of Tree Responses to Climatic Changes

“… Epigenetic changes contributing to the plasticity characteristics in a plant to stressful environmental conditions (adapted from Villagómez-Aranda et al [ 78 ] and Thiebaut et al [ 79 ]). ( A ) DNA methylation.…”