Hexaploid wheat (Triticum aestivum) root miRNome analysis in response to salt stress

Abstract

Hexaploid bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) is one of the major crops grown and consumed all over the world. Elevated soil salinity causes reduction in crop yield and quality; therefore, several strategies were developed to improve salt-tolerant cultivars. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), small and non-coding RNAs, regulate gene expression at post-transcriptional level and play important roles in stress tolerance. Here, we used a broad-range miRNA-microarray analysis to investigate the root-miRNA profiles of two cultivars, Bezostaja (sensitive) and Seri-82 (tolerant). A total of 44 differentially regulated miRNAs were identified in the 8 × 15K array containing 11 862 plant miRNAs available in the database. Sixteen novel salt-responsive miRNAs were determined in wheat for the first time. The expression of three miRNAs (hvu-miR5049a, ppt-miR1074 and osa-miR444b.2) was up-regulated more than 260-fold in cv. Bezostaja upon salt stress. The target-gene analyses showed that several salt-stress-responsive miRNAs regulate mainly transcription factors such as bHLH135-like, AP2/ERBP, MADS-box and transporters. Gene ontology searches for 565 putative salt-stress-responsive miRNA target-genes revealed 623 processes in 10 different main topics such as metabolic process and response to stimuli. The genome-wide root miRNome study indicates salt-stress-responsive wheat miRNAs and the possible mechanisms behind the tolerance.

Effect of Salinity Intrusion on Food Crops, Livestock, and Fish Species at Kalapara Coastal Belt in Bangladesh

“…In fact, this reduction of crop yield has been influenced by many environmental factors. Among these factors, salinity is one of the major causes for the yield reduction [54,55]. A similar result was found in these study locations where 92 percent of the cropping area is affected by the salinity problem.…”

Genome-wide characterization and expression analysis of common bean bHLH transcription factors in response to excess salt concentration

“…In the context of in silico identification of miRNAs target genes, we found that 100 PvbHLH genes targeted by 86 plant miRNAs. One of the identified miRNA was miR396, which was previously reported for salt stress response (Liu et al 2008;Eren et al 2014). In addition to the targeting of salt responsive genes, this family of miR-NAs also target growth regulating factor (GRF) transcription factors, rhodenase-like proteins, and kinesin-like protein B.…”

miRNA-based drought regulation in wheat

“…Up to date, several plant miRNAs have shown to play roles in abiotic and biotic stress responses (Sunkar and Zhu 2004;Lu et al 2005;Lu and Huang 2008;Eldem, et al 2012;Eldem, et al 2013;Inal, et al 2014;Eren, et al 2015;Hajyzadeh, et al 2015). For example, plant miRNAs are involved in adaptation to nutrient deficiency (Fujii et al 2005), drought (Zhao, et al 2007;Liu et al 2008;, cold (Miura and Furumoto 2013), mechanical stress (Lu, et al 2005), bacterial or fungal stress (Navarro et al 2006;Inal, et al 2014), and salinity (Sunkar et al 2008;Inal, et al 2014).…”

“…genes at post-transcriptional level (Gupta et al 2014). In recent years, several studies showed that miRNAs are involved in response to abiotic stress (Sunkar et al 2007;Lu and Huang 2008;Zhou et al 2010;Eldem et al 2012;Wang et al 2013;Eren et al 2015;Hajyzadeh et al 2015). Several miRNA families have been reported to be differentially regulated in response to drought stress in various plant species, including rice (Zhao et al 2007), tomato (Solanum lycopersicum , Arabidopsis (Liu et al 2008), Medicago truncatula (Trindade et al 2010), peach (Eldem, et al 2012), barley (Kantar et al 2010), and wheat (Gupta, et al 2014;Pandey, et al 2014).…”