Harnessing epigenetic variability for crop improvement: current status and future prospects.
Genes Genomics
; 44(3): 259-266, 2022 03.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34807374
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
The epigenetic mechanisms play critical roles in a vast diversity of biological processes of plants, including development and response to environmental challenges. Particularly, DNA methylation is a stable epigenetic signature that supplements the genetics-based view of complex life phenomena. In crop breeding, the decrease in genetic diversity due to artificial selection of conventional breeding methods has been a long-standing concern. Therefore, the epigenetic diversity has been proposed as a new resource for future crop breeding, which will be hereinafter referred to as epibreeding.DISCUSSION:
The induction of methylome changes has been performed in plants by several methods including chemical drugs treatment and tissue culture. Target-specific epigenetic engineering has been also attempted by exogenous RNAi mediated by virus-induced gene silencing and grafting. Importantly, the new and innovative techniques including the CRISPR-Cas9 system have recently been adopted in epigenetic engineering of plant genomes, facilitating the efforts for epibreeding.CONCLUSION:
In this review, we introduce several examples of natural and induced epigenetic changes impacting on agronomic traits and discuss the methods for generating epigenomic diversity and site-specific epigenetic engineering.Palavras-chave
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Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Epigenômica
/
Melhoramento Vegetal
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2022
Tipo de documento:
Article