Stress memory and its transgenerational inheritance in plants

Stress memory and its transgenerational inheritance in plants

Unlike animals, plants cannot relocate to evade external stresses and stimuli. Instead, plants alter their gene expression patterns and morphology in response to environmental changes. Histone modifications play important roles in such adaptive behaviors. In particular, we recently discovered transgenerational inheritance of memory in plants. In a study using a mutant in a histone-modifying enzyme, the mutant phenotype (reduced height under normal lighting conditions) is rescued under certain light condition. Further, we found that the memory of light exposure in the parental generation is passed to the offspring, which exhibited significant changes in gene expression and phenotype (specifically, increased height) when grown under normal lighting conditions.

Light-induced changes in phenotype and gene expression pattern, and transgenerational memory transmission