Engineering and Understanding the Epigenetic Basis of Immune Priming in Tomato

BBSRC strategic theme: Bioscience for sustainable agriculture and food

Pathogen infections pose a severe threat to plant health and global crop production. Recent studies have highlighted the pivotal role of epigenetic processes, including DNA methylation, histone modifications, chromatin assembly, and remodeling, in regulating the transcriptional landscape of plant defense responses. Particularly, how these epigenetic mechanisms facilitate enhanced, long-lasting diseases resistance upon exposure to a given stressor - otherwise known as priming - is an area of recent intensive investigation. Understanding these epigenetic mechanisms of plant defense priming will undoubtedly provide novel avenues for breeding strategies aimed at enhancing disease resistance in crops, however, most advances in this field are derived from studies in Arabidopsis. This project aims to explore the epigenetic basis of defense priming in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), a commercially important crop species, with a focus on the role of histone modifications and chromatin remodeling. This includes characterizing the priming-defective phenotype of kryptonite (kyp) mutants defective in H3K9me2 deposition, screening the transcriptome and epigenome of primed and non-primed tomato lines, and developing innovative tools for targeted histone modification and epigenome engineering. The findings from this research will ultimately contribute to a better understanding of plant defense mechanisms and provide strategies for developing disease-resistant crop varieties through precise modulation of defense-related genes.