A Regulatory Network for miR156-SPL Module in Arabidopsis thaliana

Abstract

Vegetative phase changes in plants describes the transition between juvenile and adult phases of vegetative growth before flowering. It is one of the most fundamental mechanisms for plants to sense developmental signals, presenting a complex process involving many still-unknown determinants. Several studies in annual and perennial plants have identified the conservative roles of miR156 and its targets, SBP/SPL genes, in guiding the switch of plant growth from juvenile to adult phases. Here, we review recent progress in understanding the regulation of miR156 expression and how miR156-SPLs mediated plant age affect other processes in Arabidopsis. Powerful high-throughput sequencing techniques have provided rich data to systematically study the regulatory mechanisms of miR156 regulation network. From this data, we draw an expanded miR156-regulated network that links plant developmental transition and other fundamental biological processes, gaining novel and broad insight into the molecular mechanisms of plant-age-related processes in Arabidopsis.

MiRNAs profiling and degradome sequencing between the CMS-line N816S and its maintainer line Ning5m during anther development in pepper (Capsicum annuumL.)

“…Previous report showed that miR156 regulates the timing of flower formation vis SPL3/4/5 , activating the expression of LEAFY, FRUITFULL and APETALA (Jung et al, 2011). In Arabidopsis , multiple SPL genes regulate cell division, differentiation and can result in fertile flower(Zheng et al, 2019). In this study, SPL3, SPL6 and SPL9 were identified as potentially targets of miR156 miRNA family members (stu-miR156a, stu-miR156a, nta-miR156g_L+1) were identified as approximately triple up-regulated in N816S compared with Ning5M (Figure 6A), leading to disordered floral organ development in pepper, indicating that miR156 may participate in fertility regulation.…”

“…Phospholipase D alpha 1-like (PLD1) has been identified as cytosolic protein, which regulated cytosolic lipid droplet formation(Andersson et al, 2006). Acyl-CoA oxidase (ACX) was the first and the key step controlling enzyme involved in fatty acid β-oxidation, and mutation of ACX1 leaded to petal degeneration in Chinese Cabbage(Zheng et al, 2019). In plant, ALDH6B2 encodes a methylmalonyl semialdehyde dehydrogenase, of which involved in the degradation of valine to propionyl CoA(Brocker et al, 2013).…”

“…MiR156 and miR172, two prime participators in flowering regulation, have been shown to regulate the floral transition in plant(Zhu and Helliwell, 2011;Yu et al, 2012;Diaz-Manzano et al, 2018). MiR156 could target SQUAMOSA Promoter Binding Protein-like (SPL) Transcription Factors (TF) and decreases with increasing life spans of the plant(Zheng et al, 2019). Overexpression of miR156 could delay flowering and prolong vegetative stage in many species, including Arabidopsis, rice and tomato(Zheng et al, 2019).…”

“…MiR156 could target SQUAMOSA Promoter Binding Protein-like (SPL) Transcription Factors (TF) and decreases with increasing life spans of the plant(Zheng et al, 2019). Overexpression of miR156 could delay flowering and prolong vegetative stage in many species, including Arabidopsis, rice and tomato(Zheng et al, 2019). The miR172, which targets APETALA2-like ( AP2 ) transcription factors, has the opposite effect to the miR156 on the regulation of flowering time and increases with phase development and induces floral organogenesis and promote flowering(Tripathi et al, 2018).…”

The Important Function of Mediator Complex in Controlling the Developmental Transitions in Plants

“…miR156 is highly expressed in the juvenile phase, and its expression declines as plants age, while its targets, SPLs, increase with age. Likewise, the expression of another miRNA, miR172, a direct transcriptional target of SPL9 and SPL15 [27,29], increases as plants age to promote vegetative phase change by repressing its targets, including APETALA2 (AP2), TARGET of EAT1 (TOE1), TARGET of EAT2 (TOE2), TARGET of EAT3 (TOE3), SCHLAFMÜTZE (SMZ) and SCHNARCHZAPFEN (SNZ) [27,[30][31][32][33][34]. In addition to this intrinsic regulator of vegetative phase change in plants, two phytohormones, gibberellic acid (GA) and jasmonic acid (JA) have also shown to play important roles in this process.…”