Global warming is causing a negative impact on plant growth and adversely impacts on crop yield. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are critical in regulating the expression of genes involved in plant development as well as defense responses. The effects of miRNAs on heat-stressed Arabidopsis warrants further investigation. Heat stress increased the expression of miR160 and its precursors but considerably reduced that of its targets, ARF10, ARF16, and ARF17. To study the roles of miR160 during heat stress, transgenic Arabidopsis plants overexpressing miR160 precursor a (160OE) and artificial miR160 (MIM160), which mimics an inhibitor of miR160, were created. T-DNA insertion mutants of miR160 targets were also used to examine their tolerances to heat stress. Results presented that overexpressing miR160 improved seed germination and seedling survival under heat stress. The lengths of hypocotyl elongation and rachis were also longer in 160OE than the wild-type (WT) plants under heat stress. Interestingly, MIM160 plants showed worse adaption to heat. In addition, arf10, arf16, and arf17 mutants presented similar phenotypes to 160OE under heat stress to advance abilities of thermotolerance. Moreover, transcriptome and qRT-PCR analyses revealed that HSP17.6A, HSP17.6II, HSP21, and HSP70B expression levels were regulated by heat in 160OE, MIM160, arf10, arf16, and arf17 plants. Hence, miR160 altered the expression of the heat shock proteins and plant development to allow plants to survive heat stress.

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Repression of miR408 activates the expression of three miR408 target genes, IbKCS, IbPCL, and IbGAUT, leading to activation of defense response against wounding in sweet potato.

Hydroxyproline-rich glycopeptides (HypSys) are small signalling peptides containing 18-20 amino acids. The expression of IbpreproHypSys, encoding the precursor of IbHypSys, was induced in sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas cv. Tainung 57) through wounding and IbHypSys treatments by using jasmonate and H2 O2 . Transgenic sweet potatoes overexpressing (OE) and silencing [RNA interference (RNAi)] IbpreproHypSys were created. The expression of the wound-inducible gene for ipomoelin (IPO) in the local and systemic leaves of OE plants was stronger than the expression in wild-type (WT) and RNAi plants after wounding. Furthermore, grafting experiments indicated that IPO expression was considerably higher in WT stocks receiving wounding signals from OE than from RNAi scions. However, wounding WT scions highly induced IPO expression in OE stocks. These results indicated that IbpreproHypSys expression contributed towards sending and receiving the systemic signals that induced IPO expression. Analysing the genes involved in the phenylpropanoid pathway demonstrated that lignin biosynthesis was activated after synthetic IbHypSys treatment. IbpreproHypSys expression in sweet potato suppressed Spodoptera litura growth. In conclusion, wounding induced the expression of IbpreproHypSys, whose protein product was processed into IbHypSys. IbHypSys stimulated IbpreproHypSys and IPO expression and enhanced lignin biosynthesis, thus protecting plants from insects.

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