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<p>Legumes fulfil the dietary requirements of the global population and therefore are an important and indispensable component of the food basket. The production and productivity of legumes is severely constrained by the various abiotic stress factors like drought, heat stress, salinity stress and cold stress. A yield loss ranging from 30 to 100% has been predicted due to these stresses, depending on the stage of development of the plant at the incidence of the stress and its severity. Under these conditions and given the projected food grain demand for sustaining a population of an estimated 9.1&#xa0;billion people by 2050, it is important to develop climate resilient crops in the future. Crop improvement relies on the extant genetic diversity in the gene pool of a species. However, not all the diversity or discernible phenotypes can be attributed entirely to sequence variation at the genic level, commonly referred to as genetic variation. Epigenetic diversity, which is created by epigenetic variation, rather than genetic variation, in the underlying genomic regions, particularly that arising from environment induced changes, provides a unique opportunity for crop improvement, considering that many of these changes are stable and heritable. DNA methylation at cytosine residues (mC), is one of the most commonly studied epigenetic processes. In plants, approximately 6–25% of the total cytosines are methylated. The changes in methylation are very dynamic in nature and many of these are of adaptive significance, conferring both biotic and abiotic stress tolerance to plants. It has been shown that DNA methylation is influenced by plant hormones and mediates the signal transduction induced by these hormones. In legumes, DNA methylation has been widely studied in the model legume, <i>Medicago truncatula</i>, soybean, mung bean, chickpea and a few other species. In these species, a few stress-responsive target genes like membrane transporters, transcription factors like WRKY, HSP (heat shock protein), CDPK (Calcium-dependent protein kinase), etc. which are subjected to methylation changes in response to various abiotic stresses have been identified. Additionally, genome-wide differences in methylation have also been reported. Both these phenomena are mutually independent and have different implications in shaping a plant’s response to stress. Advanced techniques on the horizon like single-cell DNA methylation analysis, allow us to further dwell on the cell-specific changes in DNA methylomes and its possible consequences. Such interventions have significantly advanced the field of “Methylomics”. The rate of occurrence of epimutations and the likelihood of them getting fixed in the population, giving rise to a stable phenotype, are promising prospects which prove the potential of exploiting the epimutations in legume breeding in the near future.</p>

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The emerging trends and prospects of DNA methylomics for abiotic stress tolerance in legumes

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年1月7日

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  • Sheel Yadav,
  • Ambika B. Gaikwad,
  • Gopal Kalwan,
  • Laxmi Sharma,
  • P. K. Jain

摘要

Legumes fulfil the dietary requirements of the global population and therefore are an important and indispensable component of the food basket. The production and productivity of legumes is severely constrained by the various abiotic stress factors like drought, heat stress, salinity stress and cold stress. A yield loss ranging from 30 to 100% has been predicted due to these stresses, depending on the stage of development of the plant at the incidence of the stress and its severity. Under these conditions and given the projected food grain demand for sustaining a population of an estimated 9.1 billion people by 2050, it is important to develop climate resilient crops in the future. Crop improvement relies on the extant genetic diversity in the gene pool of a species. However, not all the diversity or discernible phenotypes can be attributed entirely to sequence variation at the genic level, commonly referred to as genetic variation. Epigenetic diversity, which is created by epigenetic variation, rather than genetic variation, in the underlying genomic regions, particularly that arising from environment induced changes, provides a unique opportunity for crop improvement, considering that many of these changes are stable and heritable. DNA methylation at cytosine residues (mC), is one of the most commonly studied epigenetic processes. In plants, approximately 6–25% of the total cytosines are methylated. The changes in methylation are very dynamic in nature and many of these are of adaptive significance, conferring both biotic and abiotic stress tolerance to plants. It has been shown that DNA methylation is influenced by plant hormones and mediates the signal transduction induced by these hormones. In legumes, DNA methylation has been widely studied in the model legume, Medicago truncatula, soybean, mung bean, chickpea and a few other species. In these species, a few stress-responsive target genes like membrane transporters, transcription factors like WRKY, HSP (heat shock protein), CDPK (Calcium-dependent protein kinase), etc. which are subjected to methylation changes in response to various abiotic stresses have been identified. Additionally, genome-wide differences in methylation have also been reported. Both these phenomena are mutually independent and have different implications in shaping a plant’s response to stress. Advanced techniques on the horizon like single-cell DNA methylation analysis, allow us to further dwell on the cell-specific changes in DNA methylomes and its possible consequences. Such interventions have significantly advanced the field of “Methylomics”. The rate of occurrence of epimutations and the likelihood of them getting fixed in the population, giving rise to a stable phenotype, are promising prospects which prove the potential of exploiting the epimutations in legume breeding in the near future.