Research Progress in Epigenetic Regulatory Mechanisms of Virus-Plant Interactions

doi:10.13560/j.cnki.biotech.bull.1985.2026-0081

Abstract

Abstract:

Epigenetic regulation can regulate gene expression, defend against viruses, and play a crucial role in plant responses to stresses, including DNA methylation, histone modifications, RNA modifications, and chromatin remodeling. Plants mainly use post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) and transcriptional gene silencing (TGS) to suppress viral replication and transmission. During long-term evolution, viruses encode various gene silencing suppressors to counteract or evade host silencing mechanisms. This paper focuses on introducing the regulatory mechanism of the RNA-directed DNA methylation (RdDM) pathway, which plays an important role in virus defense, and how silencing suppressors encoded by viruses inhibit the RdDM-mediated defense mechanism. This paper systematically reviews how histone modifications and RNA modifications participate in the regulation of plant growth, development, and immunity, and summarizes, based on our previous study, that plants use DNA demethylation to regulate the expression of defense genes in the salicylic acid pathway and to enhance systemic acquired resistance (SAR). This review aims to provide new strategies for crop stress breeding by discussing and analyzing the interaction mechanisms between viruses and host epigenetic regulation, and how to use epigenetic regulation to enhance plant adaptation to stresses.

Key words: epigenetic regulation, RNA-directed DNA methylation, defense mechanism, silencing suppressor

WANG Wei-yan, CHAI Ye, CHEN Mei-jie, XIAO Zhu-yi, JIN Tai-cheng, YANG Li-ping. Research Progress in Epigenetic Regulatory Mechanisms of Virus-Plant Interactions[J]. Biotechnology Bulletin, 2026, 42(7): 1-10.

Figures/Tables 2

References 83

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