Swapna M, Kumar Sanjeev
Division of Crop Improvement, Indian Institute of Sugarcane Research, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)Lucknow, India.
Front Plant Sci. 2017 Jun 13;8:997. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2017.00997. eCollection 2017.
Sugarcane, one of the most photosynthetically efficient crops, is an important source of sugar and feedstock for green energy and co-generation. The high level of polyploidy and genomic peculiarities in this crop point towards a complex mechanism of regulation for the economically important traits like sugar content, cane yield related traits, resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses etc. The regulatory pathways for these traits comprise of a number of genes, transcription factors and different categories of RNAs like small interference RNAs (siRNAs), and Micro RNAs (miRNAs). MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are found to play an important regulatory role in many crops. As in other crops, several miRNAs have been identified in sugarcane too and these are speculated to have a role in regulating the various metabolic processes. Role of miRNAs in relation to drought tolerance has been studied to a great extent in this crop. miRNAs have been predicted to be linked to expression of other traits like disease resistance, salinity tolerance, waterlogging and axillary bud growth in sugarcane. miRNAs can have a significant role in biomass production in sugarcane, as reported in several biofuel crops. Till now, miRNAs linked to sugar accumulation have not been identified in sugarcane, but studies suggest an important role for miRNAs in sugar metabolic pathway in crops like and switch grass. It is presumed that in sugarcane too, sugar accumulation as well as the other important metabolic pathways might be regulated to some extent by the miRNAs. The review examines the progress made in understanding the miRNA regulation in sugarcane and the extent to which miRNA mediated regulation can be utilized in sugarcane improvement.
甘蔗是光合效率最高的作物之一，是糖的重要来源以及绿色能源和热电联产的原料。这种作物的多倍体水平高且基因组特性独特，这表明其经济重要性状（如糖分含量、与甘蔗产量相关的性状、对生物和非生物胁迫的抗性等）的调控机制复杂。这些性状的调控途径由许多基因、转录因子和不同类别的RNA（如小干扰RNA（siRNA）和微小RNA（miRNA））组成。微小RNA（miRNA）在许多作物中发挥着重要的调控作用。与其他作物一样，甘蔗中也鉴定出了几种miRNA，据推测它们在调节各种代谢过程中发挥作用。在这种作物中，已经对miRNA与耐旱性的关系进行了大量研究。据预测，miRNA与甘蔗的其他性状表达有关，如抗病性、耐盐性、涝渍和腋芽生长。正如在几种生物燃料作物中报道的那样，miRNA在甘蔗生物量生产中可能发挥重要作用。到目前为止，尚未在甘蔗中鉴定出与糖分积累相关的miRNA，但研究表明miRNA在玉米和柳枝稷等作物的糖代谢途径中发挥重要作用。据推测，在甘蔗中，糖分积累以及其他重要的代谢途径也可能在一定程度上受到miRNA的调控。本文综述了在理解甘蔗中miRNA调控方面取得的进展，以及miRNA介导的调控在甘蔗改良中可以利用的程度。
