Anthocyanins are a class of important flavonoid compounds widely present in plants, and play important roles in plant growth, metabolism and stress responses. In the process of growth and development, anthocyanin renders the flowers and fruits of plants displaying rich colors, attracts insect pollination and animal feeding, thereby facilitating seed spreading and dissemination. In metabolic stress, anthocyanin can resist low temperature, drought, fungal infection, ultraviolet damage, insect pests and other stress-resistant processes. The anthocyanin biosynthesis is co-regulated by related structural genes as well as transcription factor genes. Recent studies have showed that the anthocyanin biosynthesis-related genes in plants are epigenetically regulated, thus affecting the synthesis of anthocyanin glycosides. Epigenetics is one of the hot topics in the field of biological sciences. In this review, we summarize the advances of epigenetic modifications in anthocyanin biosynthesis and the application of genome editing in epigenetics, thereby providing new ideas for flower color breeding improvement by epigenetic regulation.
花青苷是广泛存在于植物中的一类重要的类黄酮化合物，对植物生长、代谢、应激等方面具有重要作用。在植物生长发育过程中，花青苷使植物的花和果实呈现出丰富色彩的颜色，从而吸引昆虫传粉和动物采食，便于结种和传播；在植物代谢应激反应中，花青苷使植物具有抵御低温、干旱、真菌感染，防御紫外线伤害、虫害等能力。花青苷生物合成通路受相关结构基因和转录因子的调控机制已被解析得十分清楚，近几年研究发现，植物花青苷生物合成相关基因受到表观调控，从而影响花青素苷的合成。表观遗传学是目前生命科学领域研究的热点之一，本文结合最新的植物花青苷合成表观遗传学研究进展，综述了花青苷合成过程中的表观遗传修饰以及基因编辑技术在表观遗传学研究中的应用，以期利用表观遗传手段为花色育种改良提供新思路。.
Keywords: CRISPR/dCas9; anthocyanin; epigenetic modifications.