Natural and induced epigenetic variation for crop improvement

Maintaining global food security is a major challenge that requires novel strategies for crop improvement. Epigenetic regulation of plant responses to adverse environmental conditions provides a tunable mechanism to optimize plant growth, adaptation and ultimately yield. Epibreeding employs agricultural practices that rely on key epigenetic features as a means of engineering favorable phenotypic traits in target crops. This review summarizes recent findings on the role of epigenetic marks such as DNA methylation and histone modifications, in controlling phenotypic variation in crop species in response to environmental factors. The potential use of natural and induced epigenetic features as platforms for crop improvement via epibreeding, is discussed.