- epigenome, transcriptome, chromatin architecture – Three dimensional crop responses to heat stress: a case study on wheat – 3DWheat

Due to climate change, heat stress is going to become a major source of yield loss in Europe in the coming years. There is thus urgent need for the elucidation of cellular mechanisms involved in heat stress response to be able to produce new varieties with improved tolerance. Although the mechanisms involved in heat tolerance have been previously explored, little attention has been given to the contribution of chromatin dynamics to this process, particularly in crops.
Major advances have been made regarding the epigenetics regulation of biological processes in model species, such as Arabidopsis thaliana. However, despite this, the extrapolation of the funding to polyploid species, such as wheat, is still a challenge. Also, epigenetic phenomena cannot be understood simply by determining the DNA sequences of genes or focusing on specific epigenetics mark. The 3DWheat project aims to bring new insight on the epigenetic regulation of heat stress resistance. An integrative approach of different layers of regulation will be investigated instead focusing on a specific epigenetics marks. We hope through this integration approach to answer the question how the epigenome of a polyploid species such as wheat, contribute to the adaptation of crop plants in a fluctuant environment. In this context, the 3Dwheat project has for objectives (i) to decipher the chromatin modification and changes in nuclear architecture that preside to heat stress response in wheat and (ii) to use knowledge acquired in model plants to engineer the wheat genome and create mutant lines for epiregulators with altered heat tolerance.