Environment-induced heritable variations are common in Arabidopsis thaliana

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 4615 - 13
• Main Authors: Lin, Xiaohe, Yin, Junjie, Wang, Yifan, Yao, Jing, Li, Qingshun Q., Latzel, Vit, Bossdorf, Oliver, Zhang, Yuan-Ye
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 30.05.2024; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 38; 38/91; 631/158/857; 631/181/2474; 631/181/2475; Arabidopsis - genetics; Arabidopsis thaliana; DNA Transposable Elements - genetics; Environment; Gene expression; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; Gene-Environment Interaction; Genetic Variation; Genome, Plant; Genomes; Genotype; Genotypes; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Phenotype; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Variation
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49024-3

Parental or ancestral environments can induce heritable phenotypic changes, but whether such environment-induced heritable changes are a common phenomenon remains unexplored. Here, we subject 14 genotypes of Arabidopsis thaliana to 10 different environmental treatments and observe phenotypic and genome-wide gene expression changes over four successive generations. We find that all treatments caused heritable phenotypic and gene expression changes, with a substantial proportion stably transmitted over all observed generations. Intriguingly, the susceptibility of a genotype to environmental inductions could be predicted based on the transposon abundance in the genome. Our study thus challenges the classic view that the environment only participates in the selection of heritable variation and suggests that the environment can play a significant role in generating of heritable variations. Ancestral environments can induce heritable phenotypic changes, but whether it is a common phenomenon remains unknown. This long-term experiment in Arabidopsis thaliana reveals that environment-induced heritable changes that are common, reproducible, and predictable.