Project description:In horticulture, grafting is a popular technique used to combine positive features of two different plants, obtained by joining a scion (generally the part above the ground) onto a rootstock (constituted by the stem and roots). Despite its wide-use, the biological mechanisms driving rootstock-induced alterations of the scion phenotype are not fully understood. Given that epigenetics is an important component of distance signalling in plants, we investigated the genome wide changes in the DNA methylation induced in eggplants grafted onto two interspecific rootstocks commercially used to induce scion vigour, compared to self-grafted plants. We found that vigour was associated to a specific change in scion gene expression and a genome wide hypo-methylation in CHH context. Interestingly, this hypomethylation correlated with downregulation of younger and potentially more active LTR retrotransposons. Our data indicate that graft-induced epigenetics modifications are associated to both physiological and molecular phenotypes in plants, and suggest that rootstocks can induce vigour by reducing DNA methylation in the scion genome, similarly to what observed in some heterotic hybrids.
Project description:In horticulture, grafting is a popular technique used to combine positive features of two different plants, obtained by joining a scion (generally the part above the ground) onto a rootstock (constituted by the stem and roots). Despite its wide-use, the biological mechanisms driving rootstock-induced alterations of the scion phenotype are not fully understood. Given that epigenetics is an important component of distance signalling in plants, we investigated the genome wide changes in the DNA methylation induced in eggplants grafted onto two interspecific rootstocks commercially used to induce scion vigour, compared to self-grafted plants. We found that vigour was associated to a specific change in scion gene expression and a genome wide hypo-methylation in CHH context. Interestingly, this hypomethylation correlated with downregulation of younger and potentially more active LTR retrotransposons. Our data indicate that graft-induced epigenetics modifications are associated to both physiological and molecular phenotypes in plants, and suggest that rootstocks can induce vigour by reducing DNA methylation in the scion genome, similarly to what observed in some heterotic hybrids.
Project description:In horticulture, grafting is a popular technique used to combine positive traits from two different plants. This is achieved by joining the plant top part (scion) onto a rootstock which contains the stem and roots. Rootstocks can provide resistance to stress and increase plant production, but despite their wide use, the biological mechanisms driving rootstock-induced alterations of the scion phenotype remain largely unknown. Given that epigenetics plays a relevant role during distance signalling in plants, we studied the genome-wide DNA methylation changes induced in eggplant (Solanum melongena) scion using two interspecific rootstocks to increase vigour. We found that vigour was associated with a change in scion gene expression and a genome-wide hypomethylation in the CHH context. Interestingly, this hypomethylation correlated with the downregulation of younger and potentially more active long terminal repeat retrotransposable elements (LTR-TEs), suggesting that graft-induced epigenetic modifications are associated with both physiological and molecular phenotypes in grafted plants. Our results indicate that the enhanced vigour induced by heterografting in eggplant is associated with epigenetic modifications, as also observed in some heterotic hybrids.
