Environmental heat and salt stress induce transgenerational phenotypic changes in Arabidopsis thaliana.

ABSTRACT: Plants that can adapt their phenotype may be more likely to survive changing environmental conditions. Heritable epigenetic variation could provide a way to rapidly adapt to such changes. Here we tested whether environmental stress induces heritable, potentially adaptive phenotypic changes independent of genetic variation over few generations in Arabidopsis thaliana. We grew two accessions (Col-0, Sha-0) of A. thaliana for three generations under salt, heat and control conditions and tested for induced heritable phenotypic changes in the fourth generation (G4) and in reciprocal F1 hybrids generated in generation three. Using these crosses we further tested whether phenotypic changes were maternally or paternally transmitted. In generation five (G5), we assessed whether phenotypic effects p

SUBMITTER: Suter L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3621951 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature