New insights into controlling horticultural crop quality deterioration caused by cold stress: epigenetic modification

Abstract

Low-temperature environments cause chilling injury in horticultural crops and accelerate quality deterioration after rewarming, which is closely related to epigenetic modifications. Epigenetic regulation is widely involved in various aspects of cold responses in horticultural crops, including the expression of cold-tolerant proteins, dynamic changes in cell membranes, energy metabolism, and reactive oxygen species metabolism. With the emergence and development of new scientific technologies, uncovering the secrets of epigenetic regulation in horticultural crop quality is becoming possible. Therefore, this paper reviews the types, roles, and potential mechanisms of epigenetic modifications involved in cold stress responses in horticultural crops, summarizes the dynamic changes and effects of exogenous treatments on epigenetic modifications, and discusses the feasibility of new editing technologies in epigenetic research and applications. This review aims to elucidate the complex regulatory mechanisms of epigenetic control in cold responses in horticultural crops, providing a theoretical foundation for developing novel strategies to control quality decline in horticultural crops.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 32172278), the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (No. ZR2024MC063), and the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) Program for Advanced Research (UPAR) (No. 12R059).

Author contributions

F.X.D. and Z.X.H. conceived the study. F.X.D. wrote the manuscript and made drawings. F.X.D. and L.F.J. made subsequent revisions and grammatical polishing of the manuscript. L.Y.N and L.X.A. participated in the drawing. Z.X.H. and Zienab F.R. Ahmed provides financial support and supervision.

Conflicts of interest statement

The authors declare no competing financial or personal interests.

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