Cold Stress Tolerance and Epigenetic Memory in Plants

Addressing in the light of climate change and the abiotic stress, cold stress is crucial in affecting plant growth and yield. Research indicates that global average yearly temperature has risen in recent years, with cold habitats (polar and high mountain) being particularly vulnerable to these changes. However, scientific data suggests that there will be specific low-temperature episodes; thus, it is critical to understand plant capacity for adaptation, regulation and epigenetic memory in the face of these events. Cold stress has a deleterious effect on plant growth, damaging cell membranes, reducing enzymatic activity, causing energy loss in photosynthetic machinery, unregulated apoptosis and affecting protein stability. Epigenetic regulation has been shown to have a crucial role in environmental stimuli, particularly in response to abiotic stress. Plants adapt to environmental changes by modifying histones, DNA methylation and small non-coding RNAs as well as changing the expression of stress-responsive genes. Plants use a variety of stress memories, including somatic, intergenerational and transgenerational, which are regulated by epigenetic changes such as DNA and histone modifications as well as microRNAs (miRNA), and play a vital role in gene regulation from early development to maturity. In this chapter, we focused on the epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation, histone modification, non-coding RNA-dependent silencing mechanisms and plant stress memory in response to low temperature.