Current Status and Future Strategy in Crop Improvement Using Epigenomics

Rapidly increasing population demands high yield of crops whereas the area under cultivation is decreasing with increased population. Also, the change in global climatic conditions affects the production of crops. Therefore, in order to fulfill the basic need, we require the involvement of novel efficient strategies in agriculture to develop an elite variety of crops within stipulated time. For this, there must be knowledge about the underlying mechanism of particular phenotypic characters. The desired characters can be developed either by genomic or epigenomic modifications that alter the expression of genes. The external heritable alteration in the DNA that does not involve change in the underlying DNA sequences is referred to as epigenetic changes, and the total epigenetic changes within the cell are called epigenomics. It includes DNA (de)methylation, histone modification, and chromatin remodeling. In plants these epigenetic changes are responsible for the improvement of the crop. In several cases, e.g., stress tolerance and resistant varieties of the crops that have been developed using epigenetics, e.g., silencing of MutS Homolog1 (MSH1) using RNAi results in enhanced plant growth and reproduction in tomatoes Arabidopsis, MSH1 mutant showed increased tolerance to drought, salt, and increased susceptibility to freezing temperature. The attractiveness of pollinators via floral scent and morphology in Brassica rapa is also an example of epigenetic change. This shows the wide application of epigenetics in regulating phenotypic characters. This book chapter elaborates various experimental as well as computational methods and strategies used to identify epigenetic characters and their application in crop improvement.