Epigenetics in Plants of Agronomic Importance: Fundamentals and Applications

Dr. Raúl Alvarez-Venegas currently works as a full-time Professor-Researcher at the Department of Genetic Engineering, of the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (Cinvestav-Irapuato, México). Dr. Alvarez-Venegas received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Purdue University (2002). From 2002 to 2006, he conducted postdoctoral work at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and at Pioneer Hi-Bread, Canada. Dr. Clelia De-la-Peña, was born and raised in México city and move to Mérida Yucatán when she was 12-years-old. She graduated in Biochemistry Engineering from Instituto Tecnológico de Mérida (ITM). After graduating in 2001 she started the postgraduate school getting a Master degree in Plant Science and Biotechnology at Centro de Investigación Científica de Yucatán (CICY) working on a thesis related to somatic embryogenesis and polyamines in coffee. In 2007 she obtained a PhD degree at Colorado State University (CSU), USA. Her first original contribution from her PhD thesis was on Root-microbe communication through protein secretion, which has been highly cited. In 2008, she conducted postdoctoral work at CSU and in 2009 at the Department of Genetic Engineering, of the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (Cinvestav-Irapuato, México). Her scientific productivity is important, with more than fifteen papers and others in the pipeline. Dr. Juan Armando Casas Mollano is a Young Investigator fellow at the Chemistry Institute of the University of Sao Paulo. Dr Casas-Mollano completed his PhD in the Department of Genetics at the University of Dublin in 2004. He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher and later as a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln from 2004 to 2011. Between 2011 and 2012 he worked as a postdoctoral research assistant at Purdue University. He also holds a postgraduate diploma in statistics from the University of Dublin and a BS in Biology from the National AgriculturalUniversity.

Over the past decades, chromatin remodelling has emerged as an important regulator of gene expression and plant defense. This book provides a detailed understanding of the epigenetic mechanisms involved in plants of agronomic importance. The information presented here is significant because it is expected to provide the knowledge needed to develop in the future treatments to manipulate and selectively activate/inhibit proteins and metabolic pathways to counter pathogens, to treat important diseases and to increase crop productivity. New approaches of this kind and the development of new technologies will certainly increase our knowledge of currently known post-translational modifications and facilitate the understanding of their roles in, for example, host-pathogen interactions and crop productivity. Furthermore, we provide important insight on how the plant epigenome changes in response to developmental or environmental stimuli, how chromatin modifications are established and maintained, to which degree they are used throughout the genome, and how chromatin modifications influence each another.