From seed to seedling: Epigenetic mechanisms of priming to design strategies for crop improvement

The overreaching mission of EpiSeedLink is to foster a European network that empowers crop improvement through epigenetics by providing expertise, know-how, and creativity in high-end technologies to 11 early stage scientists and enabling them to translate scientific knowledge and skills into innovation.

Through international, multidisciplinary, and inter-sectorial training in experimental and computational biology, EpiSeedLink will contribute to excellence in research and also timely address societal and agricultural needs.

This original research program combines the unique know-how of academic experts with that of two companies to synergize research and knowledge transfer between a plant model and a crop of enormous agroeconomic importance (oilseed rape).

EpiSeedLink will exploit the epigenetic regulation of seed priming mechanisms to improve crop performance under threats caused by climate change (i.e drought) through non-GMO practices.Crop breeding strategies have led to genetic erosion.

A critical challenge is to identify new genetic and epigenetic markers for crop selection programs and for bioengineering the intrinsic performance of seeds or their enhancement through farming practices referred to as 'seed priming' strategies. These include chemical osmopriming and biostimulants use, that enhance germination efficiency and drought tolerance.

Despite being a broadly adopted agriculture technique, the molecular determinants of seed priming are just starting to emerge and the nature, duration and implementation of plant priming remain poorly understood.

These gaps in mechanistic understanding have so far precluded fully exploiting the biotechnological potential of seed priming.

EpiSeedLink aims to fill these gaps by 1) understanding which chromatin regulatory layers contribute to improve plant performance to environmental threats through priming and by 2) exploiting epigenome diversity to provide markers of crop traits and strategies to the seed industry.