Recently, The Plant Journal online published an article titled “A Large-scale Circular RNA Profiling Reveals Universal Molecular Mechanisms Responsive to Drought Stress in Maize and Arabidopsis” by Prof. Dai Mingqiu’s research group at HZAU. The co-first authors of the article are postgraduate student Fan Yuan and two doctoral candidates Zhang Pei and Sun Xiaopeng from National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement ( NKLCGI); and the corresponding author is Prof. Dai. Besides, Other professors involved in this research were Prof. Li Lin from the maize team of HZAU, Prof. William Terzaghi from Wilkes University (US) and Prof. Etienne Bucher from Université d'Angers (France).
In this study, association analyses in a large maize population and transgenic approaches in Arabidopsis uncovered links between circRNA expression and drought tolerance, suggesting that circRNAs either play critical roles in plant drought response or can be used as effective biomarkers in genetic improvement of crop drought tolerance.
A large‐scale circRNA profiling identified 2174 and 1354 high‐confidence circRNAs in maize and Arabidopsis respectively, and most were differentially expressed in response to drought. A substantial number of drought‐associated circRNA‐hosting genes were involved in conserved or species‐specific pathways in drought responses. Comparative analysis revealed that circRNA biogenesis was more complex in maize than in Arabidopsis. In most cases, maize circRNAs were negatively correlated with sRNA accumulation. In 368 maize inbred lines, the circRNA‐hosting genes were enriched for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with circRNA expression and drought tolerance. Additionally, the expression levels of circRNAs derived from drought-responsible genes encoding calcium‐dependent protein kinase and cytokinin oxidase/ dehydrogenase were significantly associated with drought tolerance of maize seedlings. Specifically, Arabidopsis plants overexpressing circGORK (Guard cell outward-rectifying K+‐channel) were hypersensitive to abscisic acid, but insensitive to drought, suggesting a positive role of circRNA in drought tolerance.
Translator: Jiang Jingjing
Supervisor: Guo Haiyan
Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/tpj.14267
