Induced Methylation in Plants as a Crop Improvement Tool: Progress and Perspectives

Merce, Clementine; Bayer, Philipp E.; Fernandez, Cassandria G Tay; Batley, Jacqueline; Edwards, David

doi:10.3390/agronomy10101484

Cited by 32 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 112 publications

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“…Seed priming also synchronizes germination and improves vigor, leading to improved crop establishment and yield (Pawar and Laware, 2018). Priming is now considered a promising strategy for crop production in response to future climate (Wang et al, 2017;Mercé et al, 2020), and may have large potential to alleviate negative climate change impacts on marine macrophytes as well as to enhance yield in macroalgae production.…”

Section: Priming Potential In Marine Macrophytes Priming a Common Tementioning

confidence: 99%

Priming of Marine Macrophytes for Enhanced Restoration Success and Food Security in Future Oceans

et al. 2021

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Marine macrophytes, including seagrasses and macroalgae, form the basis of diverse and productive coastal ecosystems that deliver important ecosystem services. Moreover, western countries increasingly recognize macroalgae, traditionally cultivated in Asia, as targets for a new bio-economy that can be both economically profitable and environmentally sustainable. However, seagrass meadows and macroalgal forests are threatened by a variety of anthropogenic stressors. Most notably, rising temperatures and marine heatwaves are already devastating these ecosystems around the globe, and are likely to compromise profitability and production security of macroalgal farming in the near future. Recent studies show that seagrass and macroalgae can become less susceptible to heat events once they have been primed with heat stress. Priming is a common technique in crop agriculture in which plants acquire a stress memory that enhances performance under a second stress exposure. Molecular mechanisms underlying thermal priming are likely to include epigenetic mechanisms that switch state and permanently trigger stress-preventive genes after the first stress exposure. Priming may have considerable potential for both ecosystem restoration and macroalgae farming to immediately improve performance and stress resistance and, thus, to enhance restoration success and production security under environmental challenges. However, priming methodology cannot be simply transferred from terrestrial crops to marine macrophytes. We present first insights into the formation of stress memories in both seagrasses and macroalgae, and research gaps that need to be filled before priming can be established as new bio-engineering technique in these ecologically and economically important marine primary producers.

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Section: Priming Potential In Marine Macrophytes Priming a Common Tementioning

confidence: 99%

Priming of Marine Macrophytes for Enhanced Restoration Success and Food Security in Future Oceans

et al. 2021

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“…The flexible genomic alterations in RTEs can be considered suitable for most plant adaptation mechanisms under various stresses, including biotic and abiotic stress [31][32][33]. However, plants possess a potent response that restrains TE activity, leading to epigenetic silencing of these elements, which results in alteration in plant gene function [15,[34][35][36]. For instance, in the African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), DNA hypomethylation of a LINE (non-LTR RTEs), related to rice Karma, is linked with alternative splicing and yield loss, whereas hypermethylation near the Karma splice enhanced the normal fruit set [37].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Dynamism of Transposon Methylation for Plant Development and Stress Adaptation

Ramakrishnan

Satish

Kalendar

et al. 2021

IJMS

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Plant development processes are regulated by epigenetic alterations that shape nuclear structure, gene expression, and phenotypic plasticity; these alterations can provide the plant with protection from environmental stresses. During plant growth and development, these processes play a significant role in regulating gene expression to remodel chromatin structure. These epigenetic alterations are mainly regulated by transposable elements (TEs) whose abundance in plant genomes results in their interaction with genomes. Thus, TEs are the main source of epigenetic changes and form a substantial part of the plant genome. Furthermore, TEs can be activated under stress conditions, and activated elements cause mutagenic effects and substantial genetic variability. This introduces novel gene functions and structural variation in the insertion sites and primarily contributes to epigenetic modifications. Altogether, these modifications indirectly or directly provide the ability to withstand environmental stresses. In recent years, many studies have shown that TE methylation plays a major role in the evolution of the plant genome through epigenetic process that regulate gene imprinting, thereby upholding genome stability. The induced genetic rearrangements and insertions of mobile genetic elements in regions of active euchromatin contribute to genome alteration, leading to genomic stress. These TE-mediated epigenetic modifications lead to phenotypic diversity, genetic variation, and environmental stress tolerance. Thus, TE methylation is essential for plant evolution and stress adaptation, and TEs hold a relevant military position in the plant genome. High-throughput techniques have greatly advanced the understanding of TE-mediated gene expression and its associations with genome methylation and suggest that controlled mobilization of TEs could be used for crop breeding. However, development application in this area has been limited, and an integrated view of TE function and subsequent processes is lacking. In this review, we explore the enormous diversity and likely functions of the TE repertoire in adaptive evolution and discuss some recent examples of how TEs impact gene expression in plant development and stress adaptation.

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“…Finally, the level of overall methylation appears to be relatively stable [ 55 , 70 ], but it can diverge from the varying DNA methylation profiles in different plant tissues or environments [ 71 ]. Although the impact of DMRs on gene expression and phenotypic variability is often low and is still under debate [ 13 , 72 , 73 ], it could lead to natural variation of important plant traits, such as flower development [ 74 ], fruit development, ripening [ 75 , 76 , 77 ], and flavonoid metabolism [ 78 ].…”

Section: From Epigenetics To Crop Improvement: Lessons From Arabidopsis and Other Model Plant Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Then, modulators of chromatin compaction are regarded as epigenetic marks, including DNA methylation, histone modifications, chromatin remodelers, and to some extent small RNAs [ 12 ]. DNA methylation is defined by the covalent addition of a methyl group (CH3) to the fifth position of a cytosine ring (5 mC) by DNA methyltransferases without altering the DNA sequence [ 13 , 14 , 15 ]. Histone variants and post-translational modifications (PTMs) [ 16 ], such as phosphorylation, acetylation, and methylation, are essential elements of the chromatin signalling pathway.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epigenetics for Crop Improvement in Times of Global Change

Kakoulidou

Avramidou²,

Baránek

et al. 2021

Biology

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Epigenetics has emerged as an important research field for crop improvement under the on-going climatic changes. Heritable epigenetic changes can arise independently of DNA sequence alterations and have been associated with altered gene expression and transmitted phenotypic variation. By modulating plant development and physiological responses to environmental conditions, epigenetic diversity—naturally, genetically, chemically, or environmentally induced—can help optimise crop traits in an era challenged by global climate change. Beyond DNA sequence variation, the epigenetic modifications may contribute to breeding by providing useful markers and allowing the use of epigenome diversity to predict plant performance and increase final crop production. Given the difficulties in transferring the knowledge of the epigenetic mechanisms from model plants to crops, various strategies have emerged. Among those strategies are modelling frameworks dedicated to predicting epigenetically controlled-adaptive traits, the use of epigenetics for in vitro regeneration to accelerate crop breeding, and changes of specific epigenetic marks that modulate gene expression of traits of interest. The key challenge that agriculture faces in the 21st century is to increase crop production by speeding up the breeding of resilient crop species. Therefore, epigenetics provides fundamental molecular information with potential direct applications in crop enhancement, tolerance, and adaptation within the context of climate change.

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Induced Methylation in Plants as a Crop Improvement Tool: Progress and Perspectives

Cited by 32 publications

References 112 publications

Priming of Marine Macrophytes for Enhanced Restoration Success and Food Security in Future Oceans

Priming of Marine Macrophytes for Enhanced Restoration Success and Food Security in Future Oceans

The Dynamism of Transposon Methylation for Plant Development and Stress Adaptation

Epigenetics for Crop Improvement in Times of Global Change

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