Mild drought in the vegetative stage induces phenotypic, gene expression, and DNA methylation plasticity in Arabidopsis but no transgenerational effects.

ABSTRACT: There is renewed interest in whether environmentally induced changes in phenotypes can be heritable. In plants, heritable trait variation can occur without DNA sequence mutations through epigenetic mechanisms involving DNA methylation. However, it remains unknown whether this alternative system of inheritance responds to environmental changes and if it can provide a rapid way for plants to generate adaptive heritable phenotypic variation. To assess potential transgenerational effects induced by the environment, we subjected four natural accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana together with the reference accession Col-0 to mild drought in a multi-generational experiment. As expected, plastic responses to drought were observed in each accession, as well as a number of intergenerational effects of

SUBMITTER: Van Dooren TJM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7307858 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature