Metabolic control of histone demethylase activity involved in plant response to high temperature

In this work, we studied the impact of loss of the cytosolic ICDH (or cICDH) activity on histone demethylases function in Arabidopsis. Loss of cICDH resulted in increases of overall H3K4me3 and enhanced mutation defects of the H3K4me3 demethylase gene JMJ14. Genetic analysis suggested that Loss of cICDH affected mainly JMJ15 activity that functioned redundantly with JMJ14 to remove H3K4me3 and to regulate plant thermosensory gene expression and growth. The results provide evidence of metabolic control of histone demethylase activity to regulate plant response to elevated ambient temperature and highlight the interplay between metabolism, epigenetics and plant adaptation to its changing environment.