Exploring the role of epigenetics in cereal and leguminous crops exposed to abiotic stress

Abstract

Epigenetics affects the gene expression due to chromatin structure changes without involving the DNA sequences. Epigenetic gene expression mechanisms play an important role in abiotic stress tolerance in plants. The mechanisms such as histone modifications, DNA methylation, and noncoding (nc) RNAs are the key elements of the epigenetic regulation machinery which leads to gene activation or gene silencing. Comprehensive literature showed the role of epigenetics controlling specific loci under environmental stresses in various plants. The epigenetic effects can be perceived on various developmental stages of plants in coping with the abiotic stresses. The whole genome-wide studies have led to unveil epigenetic effects of crop plants particularly cereal and legume in the era of high-throughput and next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies. A number of epigenetics investigations are being carried out in cereals and legumes crops for abiotic stresses such as cold, drought, heat, salinity, etc. This chapter has compiled the latest improvements made in the field of epigenetics related to abiotic stresses focusing on cereal and legume crops. Moreover, development of crop varieties tolerant to abiotic stresses such as drought, cold, heat, high temperature, etc., is essential to sustain the crop productivity.