**Histone Methylation - A Cornerstone for Plant Responses to Environmental Stresses?**

Roberto Bobadilla and Alexandre Berr

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/61733

#### **Abstract**

Plants are sessile organisms and, as such, their survival relies on their ability to respond quickly all along their life cycle to any kind of environmental stimuli, including abiotic and biotic stresses. In this respect, plants have developed efficient mechanisms of protection and/or adaptation to minimize deleterious effects of stress on their growth and development. In a stress type-dependent manner, external signals are firstly sensed. This step is then followed by the activation of particular signalling pathways, resulting ultimately in the rapid and specific modulation of the plant transcriptome. Currently, transcriptional regulation is considered as a central process in the build-up of plant responses to both abiotic and biotic stresses. Among mecha‐ nisms involved in transcriptional regulation, the combined effect of different histone tail post-translational modifications (PTMs; e.g. acetylation and methylation) through the activity of particular histone-modifying enzymes can lead to changes in the local chromatin structure environment and hence the underlying DNA accessibility.

By focusing on histone lysine methylation, in this chapter we highlight our current understanding of the transcriptional roles played by chromatin-remodelling mecha‐ nisms in regulating plant response/adaptation to different biotic and abiotic stresses. Based on recent advances, we further discuss the stability and transmission of such methylation marks to subsequent generations, with the underlying idea of an epigenetically based transcriptional memory of stresses in plants.

**Keywords:** Histone methylation and demethylation, histone methyltransferases and de‐ methylases, biotic and abiotic stresses

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