ARF family identification in Tamarix chinensis reveals the salt responsive expression of TcARF6 targeted by miR167

Abstract

Auxin response factors (ARFs) are important transcription factors (TFs) that are differentially expressed in response to various abiotic stresses. The important roles of ARFs and small RNA-ARF pathways in mediating plant growth and stress responses have emerged in several recent studies. However, no studies on the involvement of ARFs in tamarisk trees, which are resistant to salinity, have been conducted. In this study, systematic analysis revealed 12 TcARF genes belonging to five different groups in Tamarix chinensis. The microRNA response elements of miR160, which belongs to group I and miR167, which belongs to group III, were conserved in terms of their location and sequence. Moreover, digital gene expression profiles suggested that a potential miR167 target gene, TcARF6, was rapidly expressed in response to salt stress. Cloning of TcARF6 revealed that TcARF6 could be an activation TF with a glutamine-rich region and expression pattern analysis revealed that the expression of TcARF6 was significantly downregulated specifically in the roots. A significant negative correlation in the expression pattern of tch-miR167/TcARF6 indicated that this module may play a key role in the response to salt stress. Overall, these results provide basic information on the posttranscriptional regulation of TcARF6 for future investigations of the T. chinensis salt-stress response.

Expression Patterns of miR398, miR167, and miR159 in the Interaction between Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and Pathogenic Fusarium culmorum and Beneficial Trichoderma Fungi

“…miR167 as well as miR159 regulate the hormone signaling pathway of their targets, which are transcription factors. miR167 targets auxin response factor 8 (ARF8) in wheat and indole-3-acetic acid-alanine resistant3 (IAA-IAR3) in A. thaliana [43][44][45][46]. ARF genes are involved in the regulation of auxin response genes [45].…”

“…miR167 targets auxin response factor 8 (ARF8) in wheat and indole-3-acetic acid-alanine resistant3 (IAA-IAR3) in A. thaliana [43][44][45][46]. ARF genes are involved in the regulation of auxin response genes [45]. It has been demonstrated that some plant pathogens produce auxin-like compounds or change the auxin signaling in plants and consequently increase the host's susceptibility to infection [47,48].…”

Advances in the regulation of plant development and stress response by miR167

“…The research progress of miR167 in recent years is detailed in Table 1 (Ref. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]).…”

“…4.4.2 miR167 regulates abiotic stresses in plants miR167 plays a role in abiotic stress and is induced under high salinity and drought stress [95]. UV-B radiation caused an up-regulation of miR167 expression in Populus tremula [96], and miR167 targeted TcARF6 in Tamarix chinensis under salt stress [19]. The expression of miR167 under salt stress was analyzed by microarray hybridization, which was caused by different salt sensitivity of different species, it was found that the expression of miR167 in salttolerant cotton was up-regulated compared with that in saltsensitive cotton [97].…”

Identification and Characterization of Long Non-Coding RNA in Tomato Roots under Salt Stress

“…Many salt-responsive miRNAs were already discovered in plants, such as miR156 [29], miR159 [30], miR164 [31], miR167 [32,33], miR171 [34], miR319 [35], miR395 [36] and so forth. In S. pennelli, sly-miR156d-5p, sly-miR156e-5p, sly-miR395a, sly-miR395b, sly-miR5302a and sly-miR6022 could target 2 lncRNAs.…”