Rice epigenomes: Characteristics, regulatory functions, and reprogramming mechanisms

Abstract

Rice is one of the most important food crops in the world and has been established as a model for plant genomic and epigenomic study. In recent years accumulated data by high-throughput sequencing provide useful information on rice epigenomic characteristics. Exploring the function of various epigenetic regulators including writer, reader, and eraser of epigenomic information reveals the importance of epigenomic characteristics to genome activity. It has been also found that these regulators are involved in a diverse range of developmental and stressresponsive pathways. Analysis of different rice varieties indicates that some phenotypic differences are caused by epigenetic variations rather than DNA sequence mutations, which are referred to as epialleles. Significantly, several epialleles are identified to be related to important agronomic traits, which provide novel strategies to improve grain productivity in rice. In this chapter, we review features of rice epigenome, epigenetic regulation of gene expression, and its implication in rice development, stress response, agronomic traits, and yield.