miRNAs for crop improvement

Ali Raza; Sidra Charagh; Benjamin Karikari; Rahat Sharif; Vivek Yadav; Muhammad Salman Mubarik; Madiha Habib; Yuhui Zhuang; Chong Zhang; Hua Chen; Rajeev K Varshney; Weijian Zhuang

doi:10.1016/j.plaphy.2023.107857

miRNAs for crop improvement

Plant Physiol Biochem. 2023 Aug:201:107857. doi: 10.1016/j.plaphy.2023.107857. Epub 2023 Jun 24.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Center of Legume Crop Genetics and Systems Biology, Oil Crops Research Institute, College of Agriculture, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University (FAFU), Fuzhou, 35002, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Rice Biology, China National Rice Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Hangzhou, China.
³ Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Consumer Sciences, University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana.
⁴ Department of Horticulture, College of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Yangzhou University, 48 Wenhui East Road, Yangzhou, Jiangsu 225009, China.
⁵ College of Horticulture, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Yangling, Shanxi, 712100, China.
⁶ Department of Biotechnology, University of Narowal (UON), Narowal, 51600, Pakistan.
⁷ National Institute for Genomics and Advanced Biotechnology (NIGAB), National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC), Park Rd., Islamabad 45500, Pakistan.
⁸ College of Life Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University (FAFU), Fuzhou, China.
⁹ Center of Legume Crop Genetics and Systems Biology, Oil Crops Research Institute, College of Agriculture, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University (FAFU), Fuzhou, 35002, China; WA State Agricultural Biotechnology Centre, Centre for Crop and Food Innovation, Food Futures Institute, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA, 6150, Australia. Electronic address: rajeev.varshney@murdoch.edu.au.
¹⁰ Center of Legume Crop Genetics and Systems Biology, Oil Crops Research Institute, College of Agriculture, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University (FAFU), Fuzhou, 35002, China. Electronic address: weijianz@fafu.edu.cn.

PMID: 37437345
DOI: 10.1016/j.plaphy.2023.107857

Abstract

Climate change significantly impacts crop production by inducing several abiotic and biotic stresses. The increasing world population, and their food and industrial demands require focused efforts to improve crop plants to ensure sustainable food production. Among various modern biotechnological tools, microRNAs (miRNAs) are one of the fascinating tools available for crop improvement. miRNAs belong to a class of small non-coding RNAs playing crucial roles in numerous biological processes. miRNAs regulate gene expression by post-transcriptional target mRNA degradation or by translation repression. Plant miRNAs have essential roles in plant development and various biotic and abiotic stress tolerance. In this review, we provide propelling evidence from previous studies conducted around miRNAs and provide a one-stop review of progress made for breeding stress-smart future crop plants. Specifically, we provide a summary of reported miRNAs and their target genes for improvement of plant growth and development, and abiotic and biotic stress tolerance. We also highlight miRNA-mediated engineering for crop improvement and sequence-based technologies available for the identification of miRNAs associated with stress tolerance and plant developmental events.

Keywords: Abiotic stress; Climate change; Food safety; Genetic engineering; Post-transcriptional changes; Sustainable agriculture; microRNA.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Biotechnology
Gene Expression Regulation, Plant
MicroRNAs* / genetics
MicroRNAs* / metabolism
Plant Breeding
Plants / genetics
Stress, Physiological / genetics

Substances

MicroRNAs