Current status and prospects of epigenetic information in sexual reproductive processes of plants

Abstract

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract Rapid progress in epigenetic studies has resulted in genome wide information of genetic functions, other than DNA sequence information. However, insufficient understanding and unclear research direction in epigenetics has failed to attract many researchers. Here, we review the sexual reproduction processes that are particularly related to epigenetics in plants. We aim to elucidate the roles of epigenetic information and molecular mechanisms involved in the complex sexual reproduction process of plants, and examine their biological significance.