Postdoctoral Fellow Researcher University of Birmingham Birmingham, England, United Kingdom
Plant diseases, both endemic and recently emerging, are spreading and exacerbated by climate change. For example, in recent years, Acute oak Decline (AOD) and Ash Dieback Disease (ADD) are emerging diseases endangering oak and ash landscapes. Plant epigenetics has recently acquired extraordinary interest as it has been shown to contribute to both short-term phenotypic plasticity and the longer-term adaptive capacity of plant responses to abiotic and biotic stresses, including the capacity to transmit these marks to progenies. Our work aims to study how disease pressures alters DNA-methylation imprinting in oak and ash. For this, trees were scored, classified in disease severity levels and sampled. Leaf-DNA was extracted and subjected to Whole Genome Bisulfite Sequencing (WGBS). Bismark software and R scripts (DSS., DMRcaller) were employed to analyse methylomes. Differentially Methylated Regions (DMR’s) were observed in different C-context. Correlation analysis identified global and targeted changes in DNA methylation with AOD and ADD disease severity. The identification of epigenetic mechanisms marking oak and ash disease resilience could be used to reforestation and conservation of future forests in a hostile environment.