Abstract
AIMS: Climate change is shifting agriculture toward multifactorial abiotic stresses (drought, heat, and salinity). This study aims to characterize emergent, non-additive plant responses to combined stresses and to define the epigenetic and microbial frameworks that govern environmental memory and adaptive plasticity. METHODS AND RESULTS: We conducted a meta-synthesis of molecular and ecological studies, evaluating high-throughput data on DNA methylation, histone modifications, and ncRNA profiles. We further analyzed the plant holobiont to determine how rhizosphere and endosphere microbiota influence host stress imprinting. The analysis revealed that stress combinations trigger distinct transcriptomic and metabolic signatures, which are stabilized by an "epigenetic toolkit" such as RNA-directed DNA methylation and chromatin remodeling. Furthermore, plant-associated microbiota serve as an extrinsic regulatory layer, modulating host epigenetic states to prime plants for compound stress. While translational pathways such as epigenetic editing, CRISPR-mediated epigenome editing, and microbiome engineering show promise, their field-scale stability remains context-dependent. CONCLUSION: Building climate resilience requires a paradigm shift from traditional single-trait breeding toward multi-scale regulatory approaches. Harnessing the synergy between the plant epigenome and the microbiome enables the development of 'primed' crop varieties-an integrated strategy vital for safeguarding global food security amid intensifying environmental volatility.
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Claims 6
Claim · model-written summary
Combined stresses trigger distinct transcriptomic and metabolic signatures in plants, according to the meta-synthesis.
Verbatim
e0“This study aims to characterize emergent, non-additive plant responses to combined stresses”
e1“The analysis revealed that stress combinations trigger distinct transcriptomic and metabolic signatures, which are stabilized by an "epigenetic toolkit" such as RNA-directed DNA methylation and chromatin remodeling”
Claim · model-written summary
Stress-induced transcriptomic and metabolic signatures are stabilized by an epigenetic toolkit such as RNA-directed DNA methylation and chromatin remodeling.
Verbatim
e0“This study aims to characterize emergent, non-additive plant responses to combined stresses”
e1“The analysis revealed that stress combinations trigger distinct transcriptomic and metabolic signatures, which are stabilized by an "epigenetic toolkit" such as RNA-directed DNA methylation and chromatin remodeling”
Claim · model-written summary
Plant-associated microbiota act as an extrinsic regulatory layer that modulates host epigenetic states to prime plants for compound stress.
Verbatim
e2“plant-associated microbiota serve as an extrinsic regulatory layer, modulating host epigenetic states to prime plants for compound stress”
Claim · model-written summary
Epigenetic editing, CRISPR-mediated epigenome editing and microbiome engineering show promise, but their field-scale stability remains context-dependent.
Verbatim
e0“This study aims to characterize emergent, non-additive plant responses to combined stresses”
e3“While translational pathways such as epigenetic editing, CRISPR-mediated epigenome editing, and microbiome engineering show promise, their field-scale stability remains context-dependent”
Claim · model-written summary
Building climate resilience requires a paradigm shift from single-trait breeding toward multi-scale regulatory approaches.
Verbatim
e4“Building climate resilience requires a paradigm shift from traditional single-trait breeding toward multi-scale regulatory approaches”
e5“Harnessing the synergy between the plant epigenome and the microbiome enables the development of 'primed' crop varieties”
Claim · model-written summary
Harnessing the plant epigenome and microbiome synergy is proposed as a route to 'primed' crop varieties.
Verbatim
e5“Harnessing the synergy between the plant epigenome and the microbiome enables the development of 'primed' crop varieties”