ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE published: 21 January 2015 doi: 10.3389/fpls.2015.00005 The elucidation of stress memory inheritance in Brassica rapa plants Andriy Bilichak 1, Yaroslav Ilnytskyy 2, Rafal Wóycicki 2, Nina Kepeshchuk 2,DawsonFogen2 and Igor Kovalchuk 2* 1 Lethbridge Research Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Lethbridge, AB, Canada 2 Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, Canada Edited by: Plants are able to maintain the memory of stress exposure throughout their ontogenesis Shawn Kaeppler, University of and faithfully propagate it into the next generation. Recent evidence argues for the Wisconsin-Madison, USA epigenetic nature of this phenomenon. Small RNAs (smRNAs) are one of the vital Reviewed by: epigenetic factors because they can both affect gene expression at the place of Rajandeep Sekhon, Clemson University, USA their generation and maintain non-cell-autonomous gene regulation. Here, we have Thelma Farai Madzima, Florida State made an attempt to decipher the contribution of smRNAs to the heat-shock-induced University, USA transgenerational inheritance in Brassica rapa plants using sequencing technology. To *Correspondence: do this, we have generated comprehensive profiles of a transcriptome and a small Igor Kovalchuk, Department of RNAome (smRNAome) from somatic and reproductive tissues of stressed plants and their Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge, University Drive 4401, untreated progeny. We have demonstrated that the highest tissue-specific alterations in Lethbridge, AB, T1K 3M4, Canada the transcriptome and smRNAome profile are detected in tissues that were not directly e-mail:
[email protected] exposed to stress, namely, in the endosperm and pollen. Importantly, we have revealed that the progeny of stressed plants exhibit the highest fluctuations at the smRNAome level but not at the transcriptome level.