Nutrient stress-induced chromatin changes in plants

Abstract

The ability of plants to appropriately respond to the soil nutrient availability is of primary importance for their development and to complete their life cycle. Deciphering these multifaceted adaptive mechanisms remains a major challenge for scientists to date. Recent technological breakthroughs now enable to assess the dynamism and complexity of these processes at unprecedented resolution. In this review, we present some of the most recent findings on the involvement of histone modifications, histone variants and DNA methylation in response to nutrient stresses as well as discussing the potential roles these chromatin changes could serve as priming or as trans-generational stress memory mechanisms.