Many facets of dynamic plasticity in plants

Xiaodong Yang, Sally A. Mackenzie

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

The evolutionary processes that transitioned plants to land-based habitats also incorporated a multiplicity of strategies to enhance resilience to the greater environmental variation encountered on land. The sensing of light, its quality, quantity, and duration, is central to plant survival and, as such, serves as a central network hub. Similarly, plants as sessile organisms that can encounter isolation must continually assess their reproductive options, requiring plasticity in propagation by self-and cross-pollination or asexual strategies. Irregular fluctuations and intermittent extremes in temperature, soil fertility, and moisture conditions have given impetus to genetic specializations for network resiliency, protein neofunctionalization, and internal mechanisms to accelerate their evolution. We review some of the current advancements made in understanding plant resiliency and phenotypic plasticity mechanisms. These mechanisms incorporate unusual nuclear–cytoplasmic interactions, various transposable element (TE) activities, and epigenetic plasticity of central gene networks that are broadly pleiotropic to influence resiliency phenotypes.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article numbera034629
JournalCold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology
Volume11
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2019

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

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