Genetic and Epigenetic Changes in <i>Arabidopsis thaliana</i> Exposed to Ultraviolet-C Radiation Stress for 25 Generations.

ABSTRACT: Continuous exposure to stress contributes to species diversity and drives microevolutionary processes. It is still unclear, however, whether epigenetic changes, in the form of epimutations such as, for example, differential DNA methylation, are the pre-requisite to speciation events. We hypothesized that continuous stress exposure would increase epigenetic diversity to a higher extent than genetic diversity. In this work, we have analyzed the effect of 25 consecutive generations of UV-C-stress exposure on the Arabidopsis thaliana genome and epigenome. We found no evidence of increased tolerance to UV-C in the progeny of UV-C-stressed plants (F25UV) as compared to the progeny of control plants (F25C). Genetic analysis showed an increased number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP

SUBMITTER: Virgen AL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11943796 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature