Noncoding-RNA-Mediated Regulation in Response to Macronutrient Stress in Plants

Abstract

Macronutrient elements including nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), and sulfur (S) are required in relatively large and steady amounts for plant growth and development. Deficient or excessive supply of macronutrients from external environments may trigger a series of plant responses at phenotypic and molecular levels during the entire life cycle. Among the intertwined molecular networks underlying plant responses to macronutrient stress, noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs), mainly microRNAs (miRNAs) and long ncRNAs (lncRNAs), may serve as pivotal regulators for the coordination between nutrient supply and plant demand, while the responsive ncRNA-target module and the interactive mechanism vary among elements and species. Towards a comprehensive identification and functional characterization of nutrient-responsive ncRNAs and their downstream molecules, high-throughput sequencing has produced massive omics data for comparative expression profiling as a first step. In this review, we highlight the recent findings of ncRNA-mediated regulation in response to macronutrient stress, with special emphasis on the large-scale sequencing efforts for screening out candidate nutrient-responsive ncRNAs in plants, and discuss potential improvements in theoretical study to provide better guidance for crop breeding practices.

Identification and Functional Prediction of Poplar Root circRNAs Involved in Treatment With Different Forms of Nitrogen

“…Moreover, miRNAs, as noncoding RNAs also play a key role in regulating poplar root responses to different N forms (Zhou and Wu, 2022a). CircRNAs, as another noncoding RNA, exist widely in different tissues of plants and play a key role in plant regulation of growth and development and resistance to abiotic stress (Zhang et al, 2020;Huang et al, 2021;Li et al, 2021;Ma et al, 2021). However, circRNAs in poplar root responses to different N forms have not been reported.…”

Overexpression of soybean microRNA156b enhanced tolerance to phosphorus deficiency and seed yield in Arabidopsis

“…miR156 is a pivotal regulator for plant growth and development with pleiotropic effects. Several studies reported that miR156 is not only a key player in modulating a series of plant developmental processes such as branching, early flowering, fruit ripening, and cell proliferation but also in responses to environmental nutritional stresses by interaction with its targets, the SPL gene family [32][33][34][35] . Here we demonstrated for the first time, that overexpression of soybean homolog of miR156 in Arabidopsis could directly enhance the tolerance to P deficiency and seed yield under P deficit conditions, which is valuable for the development of efficient P-use soybean varieties in the future.…”

Beyond transcription factors: more regulatory layers affecting soybean gene expression under abiotic stress

“…As previously mentioned in the DNA methylation section, non-coding RNA (ncRNAs) are a diverse group of molecules of different sizes that can act in the regulation of gene expression at the transcriptional level, with methylation being guided by ncRNAs. Even so, small RNAs (miRNAs, tasiRNAs, siRNAs, and tRFs) and long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), as well as circular RNAs (circRNAs), can also act as post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression in proteins ( Bhogireddy et al, 2021 ; Li et al, 2021 ).…”