MicroRNAs meet with quantitative trait loci: Small powerful players in regulating quantitative yield traits in rice

Abstract

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs which regulate various functions related to growth, development, and stress responses in plants and animals. Rice, Oryza sativa, is one of the most important food crops of the world. In rice, a number of quantitative trait loci (QTL) controlling yield‐related traits have been identified. Some of them are actually controlled by miRNAs, which control various yield‐related quantitative traits in rice. On one hand, many of these miRNAs are found to regulate more than one yield‐related traits, such as tillering, grain size, and branch number of a panicle. On the other hand, a rice yield‐related trait is usually controlled by multiple miRNAs, for example, grain size being controlled by miR156, miR167, miR396, miR397, and miR1432. In rare case, a single miRNA may specifically regulate only one yield‐related trait, such as, miR444 regulating rice tillering. In this review, we focus on the functions of miRNAs in controlling yield‐related quantitative traits in rice, including panicle grain number, grain weight/size, panicle length and branching, tiller number per plant, spikelet number, seed setting rate, and leaf inclination, and discuss how to modulate the expression of these miRNAs using modern molecular biology tools to promote grain yield. This article is categorized under: RNA in Disease and Development > RNA in Development

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

“…miR167-ARF regulates the seed development of Arabidopsis thaliana, camellia, maize, barley [15,18,70,71]. It also regulates the number of tillers in rice and determines the grain yield by auxin pathway or by regulating grain filling [9,105]. And the miR167a-OsARF6-OsAUX3 module plays a key role in regulating rice grain length and grain weight traits and improving rice yield [72].…”

MicroRNA Techniques: Valuable Tools for Agronomic Trait Analyses and Breeding in Rice

“…Since its development, the STTM approach has been extensively adopted for the functional analysis of numerous miRNAs in multiple species, including rice ( Xia et al, 2015 ; Zhang et al, 2017 ; Zhao et al, 2019 ), tomato ( Damodharan et al, 2016 ; Jiang et al, 2018 ; Yang et al, 2020 ), soybean ( Wang et al, 2014 ; Nizampatnam et al, 2015 ), cotton ( Wang et al, 2017 ; Liu et al, 2019 ), maize ( Zhang et al, 2019 ), wheat ( Guo et al, 2018 ), and tobacco ( Diao et al, 2019 ; Figure 3 ). Rice is the most important staple crop worldwide, and several of its agriculturally important traits are controlled by miRNAs ( Tang and Chu, 2017 ; Peng et al, 2019 ). Given the extensive application of STTMs in rice, we reviewed STTM-based functional studies of miRNAs in rice and focused specially on agronomic traits.…”

“…In addition, tiller angle and plant height are important agronomic traits that determine the ideal architecture and the leaf size, shape, and inclination determine the leaf architecture, all of which eventually affect the grain yield ( Zuo and Li, 2014 ). Extensive studies have supported the vital roles of miRNAs in regulating diverse important agronomic traits and stress responses in crops ( Zheng and Qu, 2015 ; Tang and Chu, 2017 ; Peng et al, 2019 ). To date, dozens of miRNA families have obtained STTM transgenic lines in rice, and several of them show obvious phenotypic alterations associated with yield-related agronomic traits and stress responses ( Figure 4 ; Table 1 ).…”

“…The tiller number per plant is one of the factors that contribute to rice yield, and several miRNA-target modules have been reported to play roles in regulating the tiller number per plant ( Peng et al, 2019 ). It is well characterized that miR156 functions in rice tiller formation by cleaving its target OsSPL14 in the vegetative stage ( Jiao et al, 2010 ; Miura et al, 2010 ).…”

“…Substantial evidence has shown that miRNAs play crucial roles in diverse biological processes, including plant development and biotic and abiotic stress responses. A growing number of yield-related agronomic traits have also been found to be associated with miRNAs ( Zheng and Qu, 2015 ; Peng et al, 2019 ), which makes miRNAs promising targets for crop improvement.…”