Departamento de Biología Molecular de Plantas, Instituto de Biotecnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Apdo Postal 510-3, 62250 Cuernavaca, Mor, Mexico.
Planta. 2012 Oct;236(4):943-58. doi: 10.1007/s00425-012-1693-z. Epub 2012 Jul 4.
As sessile organisms, plants have to cope with the ever-changing environment as well as with numerous forms of stress. To react to these external cues, plants have evolved a suite of response mechanisms operating at many different levels, ranging from physiological to molecular processes that provide the organism with a wide phenotypic plasticity, allowing for fine tuning of the reactions to these adverse circumstances. During the past decade, non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) have emerged as key regulatory molecules, which contribute to a significant portion of the transcriptome in eukaryotes and are involved in the control of transcriptional and post-transcriptional gene regulatory pathways. Although accumulated evidence supports an important role for ncRNAs in plant response and adaptation to abiotic stress, their mechanism(s) of action still remains obscure and a functional characterization of the ncRNA repertoire in plants is still needed. Moreover, common features in the biogenesis of different small ncRNAs, and in some cases, cross talk between different gene regulatory pathways may add to the complexity of these pathways and could play important roles in modulating stress responses. Here we review the various ncRNAs that have been reported to participate in the response to abiotic stress in plants, focusing on their importance in plant adaptation and evolution. Understanding how ncRNAs work may reveal novel mechanisms involved in the plant responses to the environment.
作为固着生物，植物必须应对不断变化的环境以及多种形式的压力。为了对这些外部线索做出反应，植物已经进化出了一系列在许多不同水平上运作的反应机制，从生理到分子过程，为生物体提供了广泛的表型可塑性，允许对这些不利环境条件的反应进行微调。在过去的十年中，非编码 RNA（ncRNA）已成为关键的调节分子，它们在真核生物的转录组中占很大一部分，并参与转录和转录后基因调控途径的控制。尽管越来越多的证据支持 ncRNA 在植物对非生物胁迫的反应和适应中的重要作用，但它们的作用机制仍然不清楚，并且需要对植物中 ncRNA 谱的功能特征进行表征。此外，不同小 ncRNA 的生物发生中的共同特征，以及在某些情况下，不同基因调控途径之间的串扰可能会增加这些途径的复杂性，并在调节胁迫反应中发挥重要作用。在这里，我们回顾了已报道的参与植物非生物胁迫反应的各种 ncRNA，重点介绍了它们在植物适应和进化中的重要性。了解 ncRNA 的工作原理可能会揭示植物对环境反应中涉及的新机制。
