Epigenetics in Crop Improvement

Luis María Vaschetto received his Doctorate in Biological Sciences from the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (Argentina). He was a postdoctoral researcher at the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) and a Research Associate at the South Dakota State University (SDSU). He has been the first author of more than ten academic articles and several book chapters. He also has been the editor of several international books, including three books of the renowned Methods in Molecular Biology series (Springer) and guest editor of several special issues in peer-reviewed journals. His research mainly focuses on understanding the epigenetic mechanisms involved in plant and animal development as well as their effects on human health and diseases. Since February 2024, Dr. Vaschetto has been an affiliated scholar at The Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship (Montclair, NJ, USA).

Part I: Introduction.- Chapter 1: Epigenetics and its Role in Plant Evolution.- Part II: Epigenetic Mechanisms: Rethinking Soft Inheritance.- Chapter 2: DNA Methylation, Histone Modifications, and Non-coding RNA Pathways.- Chapter 3: The Role of Epigenetic Variation in Plant Adaptation.- Chapter 4: Heritable Epigenetic Phenomena.- Part III: Epigenetic Regulation as Mediator of Complex Genetic-Environment Interactions.- Chapter 5: The RNA Interference Pathway.- Chapter 6: The Role of Transposable Elements.- Chapter 7: RNA Modifications and Epitranscriptomics.- Chapter 8: Seed Dormancy and Germination as Models for Understanding Epigenetic Programming.- Part IV: Epigenetics: A Fast and Versatile Response to Climate Change.- Chapter 9: Epigenetic Mechanisms and Stress Tolerance in a Climate Change Scenario.- Chapter 10: Epimutations and Metastable Epialleles: Exploring a Mine of Hidden Variation in Crops.- Glossary.- Index.