Song Zhaoqing, Zhang Lifen, Wang Yulong, Li Haixia, Li Shuang, Zhao Huijie, Zhang Huiyong
State Key Laboratory of Wheat and Maize Crop Science, Collaborative Innovation Center of Henan Grain Crops, College of Life Science, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, China.
Front Plant Sci. 2018 Jan 25;8:2114. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2017.02114. eCollection 2017.
miR408 is highly conserved among different plant species and targets transcripts encoding copper-binding proteins. The function of miR408 in reproductive development remains largely unclear despite it being known to play important roles during vegetative development in Arabidopsis. Here, we show that transgenic Arabidopsis plants overexpressing have altered morphology including significantly increased leaf area, petiole length, plant height, flower size, and silique length, resulting in enhanced biomass and seed yield. The increase in plant size was primarily due to cell expansion rather than cell proliferation, and was consistent with higher levels of myosin gene expression and gibberellic acid (GA) measured in transgenic plants. In addition, photosynthetic rate was significantly increased in the MIR408-overexpressing plants, as manifested by higher levels of chloroplastic copper content and plastocyanin (PC) expression. In contrast, overexpression of miR408-regulated targets, and , resulted in reduced biomass production and seed yield. RNA-sequencing revealed that genes involved in primary metabolism and stress response were preferentially enriched in the genes upregulated in -overexpressing plants. These results indicate that miR408 plays an important role in regulating biomass and seed yield and that may be a potential candidate gene involved in the domestication of agricultural crops.
miR408在不同植物物种中高度保守,其靶标为编码铜结合蛋白的转录本。尽管已知miR408在拟南芥营养生长过程中发挥重要作用,但其在生殖发育中的功能仍 largely不清楚。在这里,我们表明,过表达 的转基因拟南芥植株形态发生了改变,包括叶面积、叶柄长度、株高、花大小和角果长度显著增加,从而提高了生物量和种子产量。植株大小的增加主要是由于细胞扩张而非细胞增殖,这与转基因植株中肌球蛋白基因表达水平和赤霉素(GA)含量较高一致。此外,过表达MIR408的植株光合速率显著提高,表现为叶绿体铜含量和质体蓝素(PC)表达水平较高。相反,miR408调控靶标 和 的过表达导致生物量产量和种子产量降低。RNA测序显示,参与初级代谢和应激反应的基因在过表达植株中上调的基因中优先富集。这些结果表明,miR408在调节生物量和种子产量中起重要作用,并且 可能是参与农作物驯化的潜在候选基因。