Epigenetic approaches for crop breeding: current status and perspectives.

In order to tackle the cumulative adverse effects of global climate change, reduced farmland and heightened needs of an ever-increasing world population, modern agriculture is in urgent search of solutions that can ensure world food security and sustainable development. Classical crop breeding is still a powerful method to obtain crops with valued agronomical traits, but its potential is gradually compromised by the menacing decline of genetic variation. Resorting to the epigenome as source of variation could serve as a promising alternative. Here, we discuss the current status of epigenetics-mediated crop breeding (epibreeding), highlight its advances and limitations, outline the currently available methodologies and propose novel RNA-based strategies to modify the epigenome in a gene-specific and transgene-free manner.