Epigenetics, a mode for plants to respond to abiotic stresses

Epigenetics has been becoming a hot topic in recent years. It can be mechanisms that regulate gene expression without changing DNA base sequence. In plants epigenetic regulation has been implicated to be a very important phenomenon and mechanism for the regulation of responses to environmental stresses. Environmental signals induce various epigenetic modifications in the genome, and these epigenetic modifications might likely be inherited to the next generation that behaves with enhanced ability to tolerate stresses. This review highlights recent advances in the study of epigenetics in plant stress responses.the National Basic Research Program of China,the National Natural Science Foundation of China,the State Key Laboratory of Crop Biology, Shandong Agricultrual University中国科学引文数据库(CSCD)6477-481