epigenetic inheritance in plants

bower · November 8, 2015

I was reading about this last night, and found it so interesting I thought I would start a thread here to discuss it or post new information when it becomes available.

The first article I read was this brief overview by Hiroshi Sano in 2010, which references some work on Arabidopsis, rice, flax and wheat, in which epigenetic traits controlled by methylation status of DNA were passed on to offspring and in some cases, stably inherited by progeny for 10+ generations.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2958583/

Fast forward to the present, and genetic mechanisms have been identified, which explain why epigenetic traits are inherited in some cases and not in others. Two redundant genes were identified by Iwasaki and Paszkowskia as the mechanism in plants, of resetting epigenetic status to prevent the transmission of stress-induced epigenetic states to offspring. DDM1 and MOM1 perform the same function, with the result that epigenetic changes are transmitted to offspring only in double mutants ddm1mom1. This explains why it is not a general phenomenon.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4060648/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4444735/

This article by Penny Tricker also gives a good overview of the research, and raises the question from an evolutionary standpoint - why or in what cases is it adaptive to conserve or not conserve stress-induced epigenetic changes.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4561384/

November 8, 2015	#1
bower Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Newfoundland, Canada Posts: 6,794	epigenetic inheritance in plants I was reading about this last night, and found it so interesting I thought I would start a thread here to discuss it or post new information when it becomes available. The first article I read was this brief overview by Hiroshi Sano in 2010, which references some work on Arabidopsis, rice, flax and wheat, in which epigenetic traits controlled by methylation status of DNA were passed on to offspring and in some cases, stably inherited by progeny for 10+ generations. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2958583/ Fast forward to the present, and genetic mechanisms have been identified, which explain why epigenetic traits are inherited in some cases and not in others. Two redundant genes were identified by Iwasaki and Paszkowskia as the mechanism in plants, of resetting epigenetic status to prevent the transmission of stress-induced epigenetic states to offspring. DDM1 and MOM1 perform the same function, with the result that epigenetic changes are transmitted to offspring only in double mutants ddm1mom1. This explains why it is not a general phenomenon. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4060648/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4444735/ This article by Penny Tricker also gives a good overview of the research, and raises the question from an evolutionary standpoint - why or in what cases is it adaptive to conserve or not conserve stress-induced epigenetic changes. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4561384/