MicroRNA and cDNA-Microarray as Potential Targets against Abiotic Stress Response in Plants: Advances and Prospects

Abstract

Abiotic stresses, such as temperature (heat and cold), salinity, and drought negatively affect plant productivity; hence, the molecular responses of abiotic stresses need to be investigated. Numerous molecular and genetic engineering studies have made substantial contributions and revealed that abiotic stresses are the key factors associated with production losses in plants. In response to abiotic stresses, altered expression patterns of miRNAs have been reported, and, as a result, cDNA-microarray and microRNA (miRNA) have been used to identify genes and their expression patterns against environmental adversities in plants. MicroRNA plays a significant role in environmental stresses, plant growth and development, and regulation of various biological and metabolic activities. MicroRNAs have been studied for over a decade to identify those susceptible to environmental stimuli, characterize expression patterns, and recognize their involvement in stress responses and tolerance. Recent findings have been reported that plants assign miRNAs as critical post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression in a sequence-specific manner to adapt to multiple abiotic stresses during their growth and developmental cycle. In this study, we reviewed the current status and described the application of cDNA-microarray and miRNA to understand the abiotic stress responses and different approaches used in plants to survive against different stresses. Despite the accessibility to suitable miRNAs, there is a lack of simple ways to identify miRNA and the application of cDNA-microarray. The elucidation of miRNA responses to abiotic stresses may lead to developing technologies for the early detection of plant environmental stressors. The miRNAs and cDNA-microarrays are powerful tools to enhance abiotic stress tolerance in plants through multiple advanced sequencing and bioinformatics techniques, including miRNA-regulated network, miRNA target prediction, miRNA identification, expression profile, features (disease or stress, biomarkers) association, tools based on machine learning algorithms, NGS, and tools specific for plants. Such technologies were established to identify miRNA and their target gene network prediction, emphasizing current achievements, impediments, and future perspectives. Furthermore, there is also a need to identify and classify new functional genes that may play a role in stress resistance, since many plant genes constitute an unexplained fraction.

Genomics and transcriptomics to protect rice (Oryza sativa. L.) from abiotic stressors: -pathways to achieving zero hunger

“…Targeting candidate genes in plants has shown to be a successful use of T-DNA transformation using Agrobacterium. In addition, gene inactivation and functional research can be done using RNAi technology ( Pervaiz et al., 2022 ).…”

“…Genome editing techniques such as targeted mutation, INDEL, and genome-wide sequence changes can be used to characterize the function of plant genes ( Rashid et al., 2014 ). Zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs), transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-Cas9 (CRISPR associated nuclease 9) are the most frequently utilized genome editing tools ( Stephen, 2019 : Pervaiz et al., 2022 ).…”

“…L.) plants had much higher superoxide dismutase activity than non-transgenic rice ( Oryza sativa . L.) plants, but membrane peroxidation and malondialdehyde (MDA) generation were significantly reduced ( Pervaiz et al., 2022 ). This implied that rice redox system-related resistance to drought stress negatively regulated by RACK1 .…”

“…This adaptability enables them to withstand large floods ( Fukao et al., 2006 ; Xu et al., 2006 ). However, transcriptome analysis is employed to examine the alterations at the transcript level under diverse environmental or biological contexts ( Thompson and Goggin 2006 ; Stephen, 2019 ; Pervaiz et al., 2022 ). Plant annexins are calcium-dependent, multigene families of phospholipid-binding proteins.…”

“…During times of temperature stress and at particular stages of plant growth, the RdDM pathway also controls the methylation of transposons and chromatin condensation ( Papareddy et al., 2020 ; Pervaiz et al., 2022 ). Using RNAi transgenics raises certain biosafety issues because chromatin alteration and transcriptional gene silencing have the potential to cause hereditary modifications that have negative repercussions.…”