Available online 20 July 2022

ABSTRACT

The sessile plants encounter various stresses; some are prolonged, whereas some others are recurrent. Temperature is crucial for plant growth and development, and plants often encounter adverse high temperature fluctuations (heat stresses) as well as prolonged cold exposure such as seasonal temperature drops in winter when grown in temperate regions. Many plants can remember past temperature stresses to get adapted to adverse local temperature changes to ensure survival and/or reproductive success. Here, we summarize chromatin-based mechanisms underlying acquired thermotolerance or thermomemory in plants and review recent progresses on molecular epigenetic understanding of ‘remembering of prolonged cold in winter’ or vernalization, a process critical for various over-wintering plants to acquire competence to flower in the coming spring. In addition, perspectives on future study in temperature stress memories of economically-important crops are discussed.

Section snippetsINTRODUCTION

Plant growth and development is greatly affected by temperature, and adverse temperature stresses including cold and heat are major challenges for crop production under global climate change (Pandey et al., 2021; Perrella et al., 2022). The sessile plants have evolved a set of delicate physiological and molecular mechanisms to effectively deal with the prolonged and recurring temperatre stresses (Zhu, 2016; Oberkofler et al., 2021). In response to fluctuating local temperatures, prior exposure

Epigenetic regulation of ‘memory of winter cold’

Many over-wintering plants can ‘remember’ past winter cold experience to acquire competence to flower in the coming spring (Bouche et al., 2017; Luo and He, 2020). Generally, chromatin-based mechanisms underly the epigenetic ‘memory of winter cold’ in the warmth in diverse plants, but different epigenetic players and chromatin modifications are involved in discrete plant groups (Bouche et al., 2017; Luo and He, 2020). ‘Memory of winter cold’ has been extensively studied in the model crucifer

Thermomemory to overcome recurring heat stress

In addtion to adaption to prolonged cold through vernalization, many plants are able to acclimate to adverse high temeperatures, and an exposure to a short-term heat stress (HS) primes plants to acquire thermotolerance or improved response to recurring severe HS events. Generally, acquired theromotolerance (AT) or HS memory is a form of somatic stress memory and often lasts for a few days in Arabidopsis and other plants (Oberkofler et al., 2021; Perrella et al., 2022). HS memory is regulated

Perspectives

Plant environmental memories depend on the maintenance of the expression states of regulatory genes induced by environmental signals (stresses). Both acquisition and subsequent maintenance of ‘memory of winter cold’ and HS memory require chromatin modifications at regulatory loci, and maintenance of active or repressed chromatin state in the absence of cold or heat underlies memory of past temperature experience (Luo and He, 2020; Perrella et al., 2022). It becomes evident that chromatin-based

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

Acknowledgements

Research in the He laboratory is supported partly by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 31830049, 31721001 and 31970327) and State Key Laboratory of Protein and Plant Gene Research.

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© 2022 Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Genetics Society of China. Published by Elsevier Limited and Science Press.