González Alejandra Pilar Rendina, Chrtek Jindřich, Dobrev Petre I, Dumalasová Veronika, Fehrer Judith, Mráz Patrik, Latzel Vít
Institute of Botany, Czech Academy of Sciences, Zámek 1, CZ-252 43 Průhonice, Czech Republic.
Institute of Botany, Czech Academy of Sciences, Zámek 1, CZ-252 43 Průhonice, Czech Republic Department of Botany, Charles University, Benátská 2, CZ-128 00 Praha, Czech Republic.
Am J Bot. 2016 Sep;103(9):1567-74. doi: 10.3732/ajb.1500526. Epub 2016 Sep 12.
The phenotype of an individual can be modified by the environment experienced by its predecessors, a phenomenon called transgenerational or maternal effects. These effects are studied mostly across sexual generations and are thought to be mediated also by epigenetic variation. However, we do not know how important transgenerational effects are across asexual generations of clonal plants.
We investigated the role of different drought intensities and durations experienced by parental plants of Trifolium repens on the growth of offspring ramets after transplantation of clonal cuttings to control conditions. We also treated half of the plants with 5-azacytidine, which is a demethylating agent, to test the potential role of DNA methylation on transgenerational effects.
Transgenerational effects were manifested as increased biomass of offspring ramets if parental plants experienced medium drought applied for a short period and decreased biomass of offspring ramets if parental plants experienced intense drought for a short period. These transgenerational effects were not observed for offspring of parents from the same treatments if these were treated with 5-azacytidine, whose application significantly decreased the amount of 5-methyl-2'-deoxycytidine in plants.
Transgenerational effects might play an important role in the clonal plant Trifolium repens and are probably mediated by epigenetic variation. The growth and behavior of clonal plants might be affected not only by the ambient environment but also by environments that are no longer present at the time of clonal reproduction. This phenomenon can have yet unacknowledged ecological and evolutionary implications for clonal plants.
个体的表型可被其先辈所经历的环境改变，这一现象被称为跨代效应或母体效应。这些效应大多是在有性世代间进行研究的，并且被认为也是由表观遗传变异介导的。然而，我们并不清楚跨代效应在无性繁殖的克隆植物世代间有多重要。
我们研究了白车轴草亲代植株所经历的不同干旱强度和持续时间对将克隆插条移植到对照条件后子代分株生长的作用。我们还用脱甲基剂5-氮杂胞苷处理了一半的植株，以测试DNA甲基化在跨代效应中的潜在作用。
如果亲代植株经历短期中度干旱，跨代效应表现为子代分株生物量增加；如果亲代植株经历短期严重干旱，跨代效应则表现为子代分株生物量减少。如果对来自相同处理的亲代植株的子代用5-氮杂胞苷进行处理，就不会观察到这些跨代效应，5-氮杂胞苷的施用显著降低了植物中5-甲基-2'-脱氧胞苷的含量。
跨代效应可能在克隆植物白车轴草中发挥重要作用，并且可能由表观遗传变异介导。克隆植物的生长和行为可能不仅受到周围环境的影响，还受到克隆繁殖时已不存在的环境的影响。这一现象可能对克隆植物具有尚未被认识到的生态和进化意义。
