Sugar Signaling and Post-transcriptional Regulation in Plants: An Overlooked or an Emerging Topic?

Abstract

Plants are autotrophic organisms that self-produce sugars through photosynthesis. These sugars serve as an energy source, carbon skeletons, and signaling entities throughout plants' life. Post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression plays an important role in various sugar-related processes. In cells, it is regulated by many factors, such as RNA-binding proteins (RBPs), microRNAs, the spliceosome, etc. To date, most of the investigations into sugar-related gene expression have been focused on the transcriptional level in plants, while only a few studies have been conducted on post-transcriptional mechanisms. The present review provides an overview of the relationships between sugar and post-transcriptional regulation in plants. It addresses the relationships between sugar signaling and RBPs, microRNAs, and mRNA stability. These new items insights will help to reach a comprehensive understanding of the diversity of sugar signaling regulatory networks, and open onto new investigations into the relevance of these regulations for plant growth and development.

Plant SWEET Family of Sugar Transporters: Structure, Evolution and Biological Functions

“…Sugar is an important energy source for plants and a necessary carbon source for the synthesis of many of their metabolic intermediates [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]. Since sugar is the main transportable form of energy, it participates in the storage and transportation of nutrients in plants and plays an important role in signal transduction and resistance to stress [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. The ability of plants to store sugar is essential for their adaptation to endogenous or environmental factors and the economic value of crops, and plants rely on the energy provided by sugars to complete their processes of growth, development and reproduction.…”

“…In addition, the processes of sugar production, transportation and metabolism not only communicate information on metabolic processes, such as protein, lipid and nucleic acid metabolism, but also communicate information on the metabolism of secondary substances. Moreover, the osmotic potential of cells is affected by the decomposition of sugars, which, in turn, affects the opening and closing of stomata and the division of anthers and plays a central role in the metabolism, growth and development of plants [ 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ].…”

The SLIM1 transcription factor affects sugar signaling during sulfur deficiency in Arabidopsis

“…Expression of ‘OAS cluster’ genes is further inducible by sucrose under sulfur deficiency, indicating that sucrose controls the level or activity of transcription factors. It has been found that sucrose may control translation efficiency, affect the recruitment of ribosomes to specific mRNAs, and control the stability of the mRNA and proteins ( Wang et al , 2020 ; Yoon et al , 2021 ). Plausibly sucrose may increase the degradation of a repressor protein by stimulating interaction between the repressor and E3 ubiquitin ligase, or it can prevent the degradation of SLIM1.…”

Photocontrol of Axillary Bud Outgrowth by MicroRNAs: Current State-of-the-Art and Novel Perspectives Gained From the Rosebush Model

“…Several reviews have recently described in depth the current knowledge on the processes controlling axillary bud outgrowth in plants and their control by light (Leduc et al, 2014;Schneider et al, 2019;Wang M. et al, 2020;Kotov et al, 2021). As a pre-requisite to discuss their possible regulation by miRNAs, we provide here a brief overview of the main actors involved in the photocontrol of axillary bud outgrowth with a particular focus on rosebush.…”

“…Important agronomic traits such as yield, visual and sanitary qualities, harvest index and even organoleptic quality are determined by plant architecture in general and shoot branching in particular (Boumaza et al, 2010;Garbez et al, 2015;Zhu and Wagner, 2020). A lot of research efforts are therefore produced to decipher mechanisms that control branching (Rameau et al, 2015;Roman et al, 2016;Le Moigne et al, 2018;Schneider et al, 2019;Wang M. et al, 2020;Barbier et al, 2021).…”