Plant epigenome-microbiome interactions are an undiscovered mechanism of adaptation

Unlike animals, plants cannot move from stressful environmental conditions. As climate change leads to increasingly frequent and severe weather extremes (such as droughts), food security is greatly threatened. Within this project, I aim to prevent this. Plants manipulate their microbiomes to mitigate stresses. There is now intense interest in studying how plant genomes encode for this. However, I believe they are they are overlooking a critical piece of the puzzle. The epigenome modifies the genome, and unlike the genome, it changes dynamically to modify gene expression. I have recently generated results in a small pilot study that confirms that the plant epigenome affects the root microbiome. Now I propose to expand on these tantalising findings to show that these differences in host epigenome-microbiome are not just random, but a fundamental and overlooked mechanism evolved by plants to regulate their microbiomes that helps them to adapt to stresses.