Aphid feeding induces the relaxation of epigenetic control and the associated regulation of the defense response inArabidopsis

Abstract

Environmentally induced changes in the epigenome help individuals to quickly adapt to fluctuations in the conditions of their habitats. Here we explored those changes in Arabidopsis thaliana plants subjected to multiple biotic and abiotic stresses, and identified transposable element (TE) activation in plants infested Gao LL, Kamphuis LG, Kakar K, Edwards OR, Udvardi MK, Singh KB (2010) Identification of potential early regulators of aphid resistance in Medicago truncatula via transcription factor expression profiling. New Phytol 186: 980-94

Epigenetics: a catalyst of plant immunity against pathogens

“…Consequently, immune activation by biotic stress is associated with widespread loss of DNA methylation (hypomethylation) at TE-rich regions, while mutations reducing global DNA methylation increase biotic stress resistance (Dowen et al, 2012;Atighi et al, 2020;Annacondia et al, 2021). This link between plant immunity and TE hypomethylation can be explained by the discovery that immune activation leads to transcriptional repression of genes encoding RdDM components.…”

Long-read direct RNA sequencing reveals epigenetic regulation of chimeric gene-transposon transcripts in Arabidopsis thaliana

“…5). Interestingly, a recent report showed that GER5 is overexpressed with CHH hypomethylation in response to aphid feeding and is also constitutively activated in suvh4 / kyp background, suggesting that GER5 altTE-Gi may contribute to the defense response and resistance to aphids 75 .…”