Abstract
Temperature is a critical environmental signal in the regulation of plant growth and development. The temperature signal varies across a daily 24 h period, between seasons and stochastically depending on local environmental events. Extracting important information from these complex signals has led plants to evolve multiple temperature responsive regulatory mechanisms at the molecular level. In temperate cereals, we are starting to identify and understand these molecular mechanisms. In addition, we are developing an understanding of how this knowledge can be used to increase the robustness of crop yield in response to significant changes in local and global temperature patterns. To enable this, it is becoming apparent that gene regulation, regarding expression and post-transcriptional regulation, is crucial. Large transcriptomic studies are identifying global changes in spliced transcript variants and regulatory non-coding RNAs in response to seasonal and stress temperature signals in many of the cereal crops. Understanding the functions of these variants and targets of the non-coding RNAs will greatly increase how we enable the adaptation of crops. This review considers our current understanding and areas for future development.
Highlights
Temperature is a critical environmental signal in the regulation of plant growth and development
1 (VRN1) ([8,9]), VERNALIZATION 2 (VRN2) [10], and ODDSOC2 (OS2) [11], as well as genes involved in freezing tolerance COLD-BINDING FACTORS (CBFs) ([12,13]) and heat stress HEAT STRESS TRANSCRIPTION FACTORS (HSFs), and HEAT SHOCK PROTEINS
Floral identity and transition is regulated in part by several MADS-box transcription factors, which modulate the expression of the well-conserved central floral signal integrator, FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT)
Summary
Temperature is an important signal in the regulation and timing of plant development. We need to develop our molecular understanding of how plants signal in response to temperature to select optimal allelic combinations to enable the maintenance or improvement of crop yield for a wider range of environmental conditions. Understanding these post-transcriptional modifications may offer mechanisms to simultaneously regulate transcription factor families, gene clusters, and ploidy genomes in response to temperature and so offer new breeding targets in the development of temperature robust germplasm. We present our current understanding of temperature-related post-transcriptional modifications, focusing on research from temperate cereal crops and highlight the potential for these modifications in developing temperature robust germplasm for the future
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