Delineating the epigenetic regulation of heat and drought response in plants

Abstract

Being sessile in nature, plants cannot overlook the incursion of unfavorable environmental conditions, including heat and drought. Heat and drought severely affect plant growth, development, reproduction and therefore productivity which poses a severe threat to global food security. Plants respond to these hostile environmental circumstances by rearranging their genomic and molecular architecture. One such modification commonly known as epigenetic changes involves the perishable to inheritable changes in DNA or DNA-binding histone proteins leading to modified chromatin organization. Reversible epigenetic modifications include DNA methylation, exchange of histone variants, histone methylation, histone acetylation, ATP-dependent nucleosome remodeling, and others. These modifications are employed to regulate the spatial and temporal expression of genes in response to external stimuli or specific developmental requirements. Understanding the epigenetic regulation of stress-related gene expression in response to heat and drought would commence manifold avenues for crop improvement through molecular breeding or biotechnological approaches.