2. seminar
Role of miRNAs in Responses to abiotic Stress
in plants
Supervisor
Dr. Alemzadeh
Provisioner
Nazila gharibi
Spring 1400
2
3. ➢ Introduction
➢ What are miRNA’s?
➢ MicroRNA (miRNA) biogenesis
➢ Abiotic stress and miRNAs
➢ Stress - miRNA networks
➢ miRNAs Regulating Oxidative Stress
➢ MicroRNAs Expression Under Salt Stress
➢ Role of miRNAs during Nutrient Deprivation
➢ miRNA-based strategies for crop
improvement
➢ Database
➢ Conclusion and Future prospects
Over view
3
4. • Plant growth and productivity is adversely affected by frequent exposure to a plethora
of stress conditions
• All stress factors are a menace for plants and prevent them from reaching their full
genetic potential and limit the crop productivity thereby threaten the sustainability of
agricultural industry.
• Various genes are up-regulated and down-regulated, to mitigate the effect of stress
and lead to adjustment of the cellular milieu and plant tolerance.
• Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs) have emerged as powerful molecules, which
potentially serve as expression markers during stress conditions.
Introduction
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5. Stress
The most practical definition of
stress is “an adverse force or a
condition, which inhibits the
normal functioning or well being
of a biological system such as
plants” (Jones et al,1989).
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9. Production of cottonseed with RNAi
❖ Gossypol and delta-cadinene synthase (dCS) enzyme
❖ dCS was targeted in the seed through RNAi to interfere with gossypol biosynthesis.
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11. What are miRNA’s?
• miRNAs are about 20–22(nt), single-stranded RNAs processed by
the Dicer-like (DCl) family of enzymes in plants.
• A capitalized "miR-" refers to the mature form of the miRNA, while
the uncapitalized "mir-" refers to the pre-miRNA and the pri-miRNA.
• Genes encoding miRNAs in plants are annotated as MIR genes.
11
12. Victor Ambros & Rosalind
Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun won 2015’s Breakthrough Prize in
Life Sciences.
How miRNA was Discovered?
Rhonda Feinbaum
12
13. The first miRNA of plant origin was identified in 2002 in Arabidopsis
thaliana (Llave et al. 2002; Park et al. 2002; Reinhart et al. 2002).
Discovery of a second microRNA: Let-7
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16. • (A) Messenger RNA cleavage. Black arrowhead indicates site of cleavage.
• (B) Translational repression (H3K4me3)
• (C) Transcriptional silencing, thought to be specified by siRNAs.
The Actions of Small Silencing RNAs
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17. Nearly half of the targets of conserved
miRNAs are transcription factors.
Some miRNAs are highly conserved
and important gene regulators
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18. Representative miR164 stem-loops from
Arabidopsis, Oryza, and Populus.
All known miRNA families that are conserved
between more than one plant species.
Jones-Rhoades
et
al.,
2006
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19. The first strategy is to make transgenic plants that overexpress a miRNA, typically
under control of the strong 35S promoter.
Reverse genetics
random induction of DNA deletions
subsequent selection for deletions
RNA interference
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20. The second strategy is to make transgenic plants that express a miRNA-resistant target.
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21. Plants respond to these adverse conditions in various forms, broadly categorized as:
• Physiological responses-involve various proteins, transcription factors and
metabolites, etc.,.
• Genetic responses-involve epigenetic changes, including RNA-directed DNA
methylation, histone and DNA modifications.
• It has been reported that
regulation of stress-related genes
and miRNAs are correlated
(Sunkar and Zhu 2004). the
identification of stress-associated
genes as miRNA targets provided
clues about the role of miRNAs in
stress responses.
Abiotic stress and miRNAs
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22. Stress–miRNA networks responsive miRNAs in Arabidopsis
(
Source:
Khraiwesh
B,
Zhu
KJ,
Zhu
J.
2012.
Biochimica
et
Biophysica
Acta
1819:
137–148.)
22
27. ▪ Abiotic stress causes generation of ROS and their accumulation to toxic concentrations.
• ROS cause oxidative damage to membrane lipids, proteins and nucleic acids.
• Plants have developed sophisticated ROS detoxification system.
• In Arabidopsis, abiotic stress-inducible Cu-Zn SOD genes, namely CSD1 (encodes cytosolic
SOD) and CSD2 (encodes chloroplastic SOD), have been identified as targets of abiotic
stress down-regulated miR398.
miRNAs Regulating Oxidative Stress
27
28. Source: Bej S and Basak J. 2014. American Journal of Plant Sciences. 5: 748-759.
Role of miR398 in Oxidative stress
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29. Gao et al. 2016. Nature. 6: 19736
MicroRNAs Expression Under Salt Stress
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30. • miR399, miR395 and miR398 are induced in response to
phosphate, sulfate and Cu2+ deprived conditions, respectively.
Role of miRNAs during Nutrient Depriviation
S miRNAs regulating Sulfate Depriviation
P miRNAs regulating Phosphate Starvation
Cu
miRNAs regulating Copper Starvation
• miR395 has two potential targets:
• The first target is ATP sulfurylase (APS1, APS3 and APS4) enzyme that
catalyzes the first step of the sulfur assimilation pathway.
• The second target of miR395 is AST68, an Arabidopsis sulfate
• miR399 has two target genes belonging to different families: a phosphate
transporter and a putative ubiquitin conjugating enzyme (UBS24) possibly
involved in protein degradation
• Copper starvation induces miR398 expression, which further suppresses the
translation of CSD1 and CSD2 mRNA into CuSOD proteins
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31. Source: Bej S and Basak J. 2014. American Journal of Plant Sciences. 5: 748-759.
• PHO 2
• UBS 24
Don’t
phosphate
uptake
miRNAs and Phosphate homeostasis
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35. ➢ In addition to the fundamental role of gene silencing, plant miRNAs play diverse
roles in almost all biological (molecular) networks.
➢ The potential of plant miRNAs in regulating stress-responsive genes makes them
a suitable candidate for developing stress tolerant crop varieties.
➢ A deeper understanding of the molecular mechanism regulated by miRNA in the
complex molecular networking systems would enable agricultural scientists to
manipulate specific agronomical traits in crops.
➢ However, the regulation of multiple genes and networks by single miRNA in
plants makes the selection of candidate miRNA to target specific agronomically
important trait challenging for the scientists.
➢ For such traits, efficient tools are required to decipher pri-miRNA-mediated
regulatory networks.
Conclusion and Future prospects
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