Abstract
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.
Highlights
IntroductionGrafting is the process of joining plant tissues of two plants: the scion (upper part) and rootstock (lower part including roots), which continue to grow together combining the favourable characteristics of the genotypes involved
Grafting is the process of joining plant tissues of two plants: the scion and rootstock, which continue to grow together combining the favourable characteristics of the genotypes involved
Enhanced vigour in hetero-grafted eggplant scions is associated to genome-wide CHH hypomethylation To study the effect of grafting on vigour, we grafted eggplant scions on three rootstocks: (i) the wild species Solanum torvum (TOR), (ii) the tomato F1 commercial hybrid ‘Emperador RZ’ (EMP) and (iii) the same eggplant genotype (Fig. 1a)
Summary
Grafting is the process of joining plant tissues of two plants: the scion (upper part) and rootstock (lower part including roots), which continue to grow together combining the favourable characteristics of the genotypes involved. Not directly involved in fruit production, rootstocks are selected for their ability to regulate salinity and drought tolerance, water-use efficiency and nutrient uptake, soil-borne pathogen resistance, scion vigour and architecture, mineral element composition, fruit quality and yield in a broad range of species[3,4,5]. While some of these aspects can be explained by intrinsic properties of rootstock genotypes, the molecular mechanisms at the base of the rootstock-mediated control of scion phenotypes remain mostly unknown
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