Enhanced epigenetic inheritance in Arabidopsis thaliana

Plants are sessile organisms and as such are frequently exposed to a wide range of environmental stress conditions. Exposure to such stresses, can affect plant growth and survival. Therefore plants have developed strategies to rapidly adapt to fluctuating environmental conditions which, in some cases, these adaptive responses can be passed on to the offspring. One mechanism implicated in this transgenerational “stress memory” involves changes in DNA methylation that are directed by external stress. However, it has previously found that this so-called “stress memory” is temporary, as in the absence of stress these epigenetic changes are rapidly erased. In this study, a new methodology was established to enhance the transmission of epigenetic changes directed by stress by exposed the stress during somatic embryogenesis by using overexpression of AtRWP-RKD4 in Arabidopsis thaliana. The data show that the introduction of abiotic stress during somatic embryogenesis leads to partly heritable adaptation phenotype in the non-stress progenies. The phenotypical changes are followed by the changes in transcriptome and methylome in which these molecular changes are observed in tissue-specific manners. Based on these findings, this new methodology can be applied to develop stable stress-adaptation phenotypic in plants