Climate Change and Its Impact on the Genome and Epigenome

Climate change, particularly global warming with a rise of over 1.2 degrees Celsius in the last decade, poses a significant threat to life and health worldwide. Its adverse effects are far-reaching, impacting human health, especially reproductive, maternal-child, and elderly populations. We aim to explore how this environmental stress affects life at fundamental levels: from organs and tissues down to the genome, chromosomes, and individual genes. While biological systems exhibit resilience, there is a critical threshold beyond which the impacts of climate change become intolerable.

Emerging research highlights the growing impact of climate change and its influence on genetic mechanisms. For instance, studies on insects suggest that larger genome sizes and increased transposable elements may confer better adaptation to climate fluctuations, even as other studies point to climate-induced insect extinctions. In livestock, climate change impacts reproductive fitness and milk production, with observed changes in genome sequences, SNPs, and mutation rates over time. It is evident that climate change has profound consequences on the genome, affecting SNPs, DNA damage, chromatin accessibility and compaction, transcriptional dysregulation, chromosomal aberrations, instability, and epigenetic dysregulation.

This raises critical questions: Are specific human populations or ethnic groups more susceptible to global warming? While stress tolerance mechanisms have evolved, the rapid pace of climate change may outstrip the adaptive capacity of human genomes and epigenomes. Furthermore, how does climate change impact existing communicable and non-communicable diseases? While controlled experiments are feasible in model organisms (mice, rats, zebrafish, Drosophila, plants, bacteria, viruses), replicating these in larger mammals and humans is challenging. The pandemic also prompts questions about the effects of climate change on viral properties like virulence and genome size, creating a complex interplay where bacterial and viral genomes might adapt faster than human genomes within a host. This complexity makes it challenging to design definitive experimental paradigms to delineate cause and effect of climate change and heat stress, though studies on heat shock proteins (Hsp70, Hsp90) and epigenetic modifications (H3K27me3, H3K9ac) offer insights into gene expression modulation under stress. We also need to consider the dynamics of chromatin, centromeres, telomeres, and nuclear architecture. A crucial, often overlooked area is the role of coding and non-coding RNAs as rapid responders and regulators of extraneous stressors. Ultimately, the extent of adaptability to these stressors is vital for survival; otherwise, cell death and extinction become inevitable.

Epigenomic changes can occur faster than other genomic alterations in response to environmental stress. For example, heat stress has been shown to induce adaptive transgenerational epigenetic changes in plants, aiding their survival. However, such mechanisms remain debated and underexplored in mammals. Therefore, understanding the delicate balance between adaptive and aberrant epigenomic changes in mammals and humans due to climate change is crucial.

This Collection aims to explore the mechanistic basis of how environmental stressors create lasting impacts on the genome and epigenome, including transgenerational effects and plasticity. We invite submissions of original research, reviews, and resource articles that use integrative phenotypic and molecular approaches to address the impact of climate change (especially global warming) on genome and epigenome regulation across diverse species, including humans, mice, C. elegans, Drosophila, and plants. Our goal is to consolidate the latest research, foster academic exchange, and highlight potential preventive measures to combat the negative outcomes of a changing climate on the genome and epigenome.