How Stress Facilitates Phenotypic Innovation Through Epigenetic Diversity

TY - JOUR

T1 - How Stress Facilitates Phenotypic Innovation Through Epigenetic Diversity

AU - Srikant, Thanvi

AU - Drost, Hajk-Georg

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © Copyright © 2021 Srikant and Drost.

PY - 2021/1/15

Y1 - 2021/1/15

N2 - Climate adaptation through phenotypic innovation will become the main challenge for plants during global warming. Plants exhibit a plethora of mechanisms to achieve environmental and developmental plasticity by inducing dynamic alterations of gene regulation and by maximizing natural variation through large population sizes. While successful over long evolutionary time scales, most of these mechanisms lack the short-term adaptive responsiveness that global warming will require. Here, we review our current understanding of the epigenetic regulation of plant genomes, with a focus on stress-response mechanisms and transgenerational inheritance. Field and laboratory-scale experiments on plants exposed to stress have revealed a multitude of temporally controlled, mechanistic strategies integrating both genetic and epigenetic changes on the genome level. We analyze inter- and intra-species population diversity to discuss how methylome differences and transposon activation can be harnessed for short-term adaptive efforts to shape co-evolving traits in response to qualitatively new climate conditions and environmental stress.

AB - Climate adaptation through phenotypic innovation will become the main challenge for plants during global warming. Plants exhibit a plethora of mechanisms to achieve environmental and developmental plasticity by inducing dynamic alterations of gene regulation and by maximizing natural variation through large population sizes. While successful over long evolutionary time scales, most of these mechanisms lack the short-term adaptive responsiveness that global warming will require. Here, we review our current understanding of the epigenetic regulation of plant genomes, with a focus on stress-response mechanisms and transgenerational inheritance. Field and laboratory-scale experiments on plants exposed to stress have revealed a multitude of temporally controlled, mechanistic strategies integrating both genetic and epigenetic changes on the genome level. We analyze inter- and intra-species population diversity to discuss how methylome differences and transposon activation can be harnessed for short-term adaptive efforts to shape co-evolving traits in response to qualitatively new climate conditions and environmental stress.

KW - abiotic stress

KW - energy stress

KW - epigenetics (DNA methylation)

KW - epigenomics

KW - methylome diversity

KW - natural variation in plants

KW - plant engineering

KW - transposable element

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85100098411

U2 - 10.3389/fpls.2020.606800

DO - 10.3389/fpls.2020.606800

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85100098411

SN - 1664-462X

VL - 11

JO - Frontiers in Plant Science

JF - Frontiers in Plant Science

M1 - 606800

ER -