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Epigenetic stress memory: A new approach to study cold and heat stress responses in plants

  • Muthusamy Ramakrishnan
  • , Zhijun Zhang
  • , Sileesh Mullasseri
  • , Ruslan Kalendar
  • , Anket Sharma
  • , Guohua Liu
  • , Mingbing Zhou
  • , Qiang Wei
  • Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University
  • Nanjing Forestry University
  • University of Maryland, Baltimore

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

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Abstract

Understanding plant stress memory under extreme temperatures such as cold and heat could contribute to plant development. Plants employ different types of stress memories, such as somatic, intergenerational and transgenerational, regulated by epigenetic changes such as DNA and histone modifications and microRNAs (miRNA), playing a key role in gene regulation from early development to maturity. In most cases, cold and heat stresses result in short-term epigenetic modifications that can return to baseline modification levels after stress cessation. Nevertheless, some of the modifications may be stable and passed on as stress memory, potentially allowing them to be inherited across generations, whereas some of the modifications are reactivated during sexual reproduction or embryogenesis. Several stress-related genes are involved in stress memory inheritance by turning on and off transcription profiles and epigenetic changes. Vernalization is the best example of somatic stress memory. Changes in the chromatin structure of the Flowering Locus C (FLC) gene, a MADS-box transcription factor (TF), maintain cold stress memory during mitosis. FLC expression suppresses flowering at high levels during winter; and during vernalization, B3 TFs, cold memory cis-acting element and polycomb repressive complex 1 and 2 (PRC1 and 2) silence FLC activation. In contrast, the repression of SQUAMOSA promoter-binding protein-like (SPL) TF and the activation of Heat Shock TF (HSFA2) are required for heat stress memory. However, it is still unclear how stress memory is inherited by offspring, and the integrated view of the regulatory mechanisms of stress memory and mitotic and meiotic heritable changes in plants is still scarce. Thus, in this review, we focus on the epigenetic regulation of stress memory and discuss the application of new technologies in developing epigenetic modifications to improve stress memory.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1075279
JournalFrontiers in Plant Science
Volume13
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 8 2022

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31770721), a grant from Jiangxi Shuangqian Program (S2019DQKJ2030), the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (LY20C020001), the Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of Nanjing Forestry University (JC2019004), the Qing Lan Project of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions, and a project funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions. The authors are also grateful for the support of Metasequoia Faculty Research Start-up Funding (163100028) at Bamboo Research Institute, Nanjing Forestry University for the first author MR.

FundersFunder number
Bamboo Research Institute
Jiangxi Shuangqian ProgramS2019DQKJ2030
Metasequoia Faculty Research Start-up Funding163100028
Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of Nanjing Forestry UniversityJC2019004
Qing Lan Project of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions
Nanjing Forestry University
National Natural Science Foundation of China31770721
Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang ProvinceLY20C020001
Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions

    UN SDGs

    This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

    1. SDG 13 - Climate Action
      SDG 13 Climate Action

    Keywords

    • DNA methylation
    • chromatin remodelling
    • epigenetics
    • histone modifications
    • intergenerational memory
    • somatic memory
    • stress memory
    • transgenerational memory

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Plant Science

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