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The Role of Germinally Inherited Epialleles in Plant Breeding

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Epigenetics in Plants of Agronomic Importance: Fundamentals and Applications

Abstract

Plant breeding focuses on repeated selection of individuals with desired traits from phenotypically variable populations. Breeders may be able to explain the broad sense heritability for a trait, the proportion of the total trait variance between genetically distinct lines compared to within a line, or the narrow sense heritability, the proportion of the trait variation that is due to the additive effects of genes. However, breeders rarely know the underlying causes of the observed genetic variation. In this chapter, we take a trait-focused approach to review the degree to which plant variation is due to epigenetic variation and to what degree epigenetic factors are suitable for selection in plant breeding. We suggest that the amount of trait variation that is due to heritable differences in chromatin states is far lower than variation due to changes in the primary sequence of DNA. In addition, epigenetic states are often unstable, and selection on only a small number of epigenetic states could lead to consistent plant improvement.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada

    Megan House & Lewis Lukens

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  1. Megan House
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  2. Lewis Lukens
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Correspondence to Lewis Lukens .

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House, M., Lukens, L. (2014). The Role of Germinally Inherited Epialleles in Plant Breeding. In: Epigenetics in Plants of Agronomic Importance: Fundamentals and Applications. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07971-4_1

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