The evolution of epigenetic mechanisms in plants

Abstract

Plants harbor an astonishing level of diversity. Despite this variability, plants have conserved several biochemical and molecular processes with other eukaryotes. One of these conserved processes is epigenetic regulation, which has indeed evolved in complexity in this clade of eukaryotes. In the plant kingdom, epigenetic mechanisms are key to adapt plant development to external stimuli, an important feature in plants since one of their most remarkable characteristics is that they are sessile organisms. Plants have different mechanisms of epigenetic regulation that add versatility to the regulation of transcription and maintain the stability of the genome. In recent years, several works have explored the evolutionary conservation of both the machinery and the role of these epigenetic pathways. This chapter reviews the conservation of the epigenetic machinery and its roles in plants. We will focus on the evolution of the molecular and mechanistic aspects of epigenetic regulation in plants and their differences with other eukaryotes.

Keywords

DNA methylation; Histone marks; Histone variants; Plant epigenetics; RNA interference; RNA silencing; Small RNAs; Transposable elements

Published in

Title: On Epigenetics and Evolution : a volume in Translational Epigenetics
ISBN: 978-0-443-19051-3Publisher: Elsevier

SLU Authors

• Juárez González, Vasti Thamara

  • Department of Plant Biology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Martinez-Arias, Germán

  • Department of Plant Biology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Cortes de Felipe, Claudia

  • Department of Plant Biology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Evolutionary Biology
Botany
Plant Biotechnology


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-443-19051-3.00012-7

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/131775