PMS1T, producing phased small-interfering RNAs, regulates photoperiod-sensitive male sterility in rice

Abstract

Phased small-interfering RNAs (phasiRNAs) are a special class of small RNAs, which are generated in 21-or 24-nt intervals from transcripts of precursor RNAs. Although phasiRNAs have been found in a range of organisms, their biological functions in plants have yet to be uncovered. Here we show that phasiRNAs generated by the photopheriod-sensetive genic male sterility 1 (Pms1) locus were associated with photoperiod-sensitive male sterility (PSMS) in rice, a germplasm that started the two-line hybrid rice breeding. The Pms1 locus encodes a long-noncoding RNA PMS1T that was preferentially expressed in young panicles. PMS1T was targeted by miR2118 to produce 21-nt phasiRNAs that preferentially accumulated in the PSMS line under long-day conditions. A single nucleotide polymorphism in PMS1T nearby the miR2118 recognition site was critical for fertility change, likely leading to differential accumulation of the phasiRNAs. This result suggested possible roles of phasiRNAs in reproductive development of rice, demonstrating the potential importance of this RNA class as regulators in biological processes.photoperiod-sensitive male sterility | long-noncoding RNA | phasiRNA

Cis‐directed cleavage and nonstoichiometric abundances of 21‐nucleotide reproductive phased small interfering RNAs in grasses

“…Yet, in anthers, there is a synchronized set of hundreds of tissue‐specific PHAS loci, so clearly the activity of many phasiRNAs is required at a particularly moment in development. We note that single nt polymorphisms at single phasiRNAs in two rice 21‐nt PHAS loci are the genetic basis for the agronomically important photoperiod‐sensitive male sterility phenotype (Mei et al ., ; Ding et al ., ; Zhu & Deng, ; Fan et al ., ). With these points in mind, future studies should examine the conservation of abundances and targets of individual phasiRNAs across orthologous PHAS loci in diverse grass species.…”

Comparative Analysis of Expression Profiles of Panicle Development among Tolerant and Sensitive Rice in Response to Drought Stress

“…After 2 weeks the soil water content decreased to 13.8%, panicle initiation and development was determined by manual measurement of rice panicle length. When young panicles were ∼2 cm in length corresponding to pollen mother cell formation stage, many genes were the highest expression in panicles with an expression peak, such as SG1 (Nakagawa et al, 2012), LABA1 (Hua et al, 2015), PMS1T (Fan et al, 2016). The developing young panicles (2 cm in length) were sampled and harvested into liquid nitrogen to store at -80°C for RNA isolation.…”

The ‘how’ and ‘where’ of plant microRNAs

“…A larger number of phasiRNAs, as well as the loci that generate them ( PHAS loci), have been identified in many non-Brassicaceae plants (reviewed in Fei et al ., 2013). The phasiRNAs are derived from transcripts of protein coding genes, such as NBS-LRR and PPR genes, or long non-coding RNAs (Fei et al ., 2013; Zhai et al ., 2015; Fan et al ., 2016). Although the targets of many phasiRNAs are still unclear, miRNA-triggered production of phasiRNAs is nevertheless hypothesized to act in beneficial microbial interactions or plant defense, or have other long-term evolutionary benefits (reviewed in Fei et al ., 2013).…”