Daneels Tomas, Martinez-Barrales Gustavo, Bosmans Cederic, Geuten Koen
Department of Biology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Front Plant Sci. 2025 Aug 5;16:1520593. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1520593. eCollection 2025.
Vernalisation is a prolonged cold exposure that synchronises flowering with favourable seasonal conditions, protecting reproductive development from winter stress and optimising crop yields. By 'recording' winter, this biological process displays memory and becomes progressively more difficult to reverse. In the well-studied model Arabidopsis, vernalisation epigenetically silences the gene locus of the floral repressor . Temperate cereals, including crops such as wheat and barley, respond to a similar vernalisation cue with a memory property and recent functional studies also support an epigenetic mechanism. Current evidence points to the flowering promoter as the primary site for storing this memory. Because vernalisation in cereals appears to rely on epigenetic activation of , rather than repression as in Arabidopsis, the specific histone marks responsible for storing this epigenetic memory are possibly different. This highlights the need for further research to identify the specific genes and histone modifications involved, and to fully elucidate the mechanisms underlying vernalisation memory in cereals. The goal of this review is to synthesise recent advances in our understanding of the epigenetic regulation of vernalisation in temperate cereals. Therefore, this review focuses on the roles of key genes such as , , and , and examines the dynamic chromatin landscape associated with vernalisation-induced flowering. In particular, we investigate the possible interplay of chromatin marks involved in the epigenetic activation of . By synthesising current knowledge and highlighting unresolved questions, this review aims to provide a framework for future research in the field of cereal vernalisation memory.
春化作用是一种长时间的低温暴露，它使开花与适宜的季节条件同步，保护生殖发育免受冬季胁迫并优化作物产量。通过“记录”冬季，这一生物学过程表现出记忆性，并且越来越难以逆转。在研究充分的模式植物拟南芥中，春化作用通过表观遗传使 floral repressor 的基因座沉默。包括小麦和大麦等作物在内的温带谷类作物对类似的春化信号有记忆反应，最近的功能研究也支持一种表观遗传机制。目前的证据表明 flowering promoter 是存储这种记忆的主要位点。由于谷类作物的春化作用似乎依赖于对的表观遗传激活，而不是像拟南芥那样的抑制作用，因此负责存储这种表观遗传记忆的特定组蛋白标记可能不同。这突出了进一步研究以确定所涉及的特定基因和组蛋白修饰，并全面阐明谷类作物春化记忆潜在机制的必要性。本综述的目的是综合我们对温带谷类作物春化作用表观遗传调控理解的最新进展。因此，本综述重点关注关键基因如、和的作用，并研究与春化诱导开花相关的动态染色质景观。特别是，我们研究了参与表观遗传激活的染色质标记之间可能的相互作用。通过综合现有知识并突出未解决的问题，本综述旨在为谷类作物春化记忆领域的未来研究提供一个框架。
