Mild drought in the vegetative stage induces phenotypic, gene expression, and DNA methylation plasticity in Arabidopsis but no transgenerational effects

Abstract

There is renewed interest in whether environmentally induced changes in phenotypes can be heritable. In plants, heritable trait variation can occur without DNA sequence mutations through epigenetic mechanisms involving DNA methylation. However, it remains unknown whether this alternative system of inheritance responds to environmental changes and if it can provide a rapid way for plants to generate adaptive heritable phenotypic variation. To assess potential transgenerational effects induced by the environment, we subjected four natural accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana together with the reference accession Col-0 to mild drought in a multi-generational experiment. As expected, plastic responses to drought were observed in each accession, as well as a number of intergenerational effects of the parental environments. However, after an intervening generation without stress, except for a very few trait-based parental effects, descendants of stressed and non-stressed plants were phenotypically indistinguishable irrespective of whether they were grown in control conditions or under water deficit. In addition, genome-wide analysis of DNA methylation and gene expression in Col-0 demonstrated that, while mild drought induced changes in the DNA methylome of exposed plants, these variants were not inherited. We conclude that mild drought stress does not induce transgenerational epigenetic effects.

Genotypic variation in the persistence of transgenerational responses to seasonal cues*

“…2016), and A. thaliana responds to these cues experienced by parents and by the progeny themselves (Kendall and Penfield 2012; Kerdaffrec and Nordborg 2017; Lampei 2018; Van Dooren et al. 2020; Vayda et al. 2018).…”

“…Several genotypes, however, cycle quickly through life stages, allowing two generations in a year. The timing of critical life-stage transitions that determine overall life cycle expression, such as germination, flowering, and seed dispersal, relies on seasonal cueing (Zhang and Lechowicz 1994;Callahan and Pigliucci 2002;Fournier-Level et al 2016), and A. thaliana responds to these cues experienced by parents and by the progeny themselves (Kendall and Penfield 2012;Kerdaffrec and Nordborg 2017;Lampei 2018;Van Dooren et al 2020;Vayda et al 2018).…”

“…Genomic analysis may provide clarity as to whether these traits, and the genes responsible for them, are under selection in nature, or are evolving by drift. Likely candidates include genes regulating DNA methylation (e.g., Colicchio et al 2018;Rendina González et al 2018;Van Dooren et al 2020), or small RNAs (Zhong et al 2013), both of which have been implicated in the regulation of transgenerational plasticity.…”

Leaf Soluble Sugars and Free Amino Acids as Important Components of Abscisic Acid—Mediated Drought Response in Tomato

“…Drought is one of the major abiotic environmental factors that, in combination with high insolation and high temperatures, often cause detrimental losses in crop productivity [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. In nature, plants often face a mild drought combined with other factors, thus the effect of solely water deficit is masked by the other two stresses—heat and photo-oxidation [ 4 ]. Yield productivity is affected by climate changes, which involve repeated occurrences of limited water supply combined with elevated CO 2 and high temperature, generating enhanced plant drought tolerance [ 5 , 6 ].…”

Genome-wide Identification and Transcriptional Characterization of Dna Methyltransferases Conferring Temperature-sensitive Male Sterility in Wheat

“…Comprehensive studies have showed that plant DNA methylation was predominantly associated with growth and development [30,31], secondary metabolism [32,33] and various stress responses including salt stress [34,35], drought stress [36,37], cold stress [38,39]. Since DNA methylation is involved in regulating a wide range of biological processes, DMT genes have been identi ed and analyzed in several plant species, such as Arabidopsis thaliana [40,41], rice [42,43], maize [44,45], and wheat [46].…”