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MicroRNA156 amplifies transcription factor-associated cold stress tolerance in plant cells

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Abstract

MicroRNAs may increase cold stress tolerance by regulating stress-related signal transduction pathways and by modulating the expression of transcription factors. However, the molecular mechanism by which microRNAs enhance cold stress tolerance is not fully understood. Here, we report that overexpression of rice microRNA156 (OsmiR156) results in increased cell viability and growth rate under cold stress in Arabidopsis, pine, and rice. OsmiR156 increases cold stress tolerance by targeting OsSPL3. OsSPL3 positively regulates the expression of OsWRKY71, a negative regulator of the transcription factors OsMYB2 and OsMYB3R-2. OsMYB2 counteracts cold stress by activating the expression of the stress-response genes OsLEA3, OsRab16A, and OsDREB2A. OsMYB3R-2 counteracts cold stress by activating the expression of OsKNOLLE2, OsCTP1, OsCycB1.1, OsCycB2.1, and OsCDC20.1. In OsmiR156 transgenic rice cell lines, the transcript levels of OsLEA3, OsRab16A, OsDREB2A, OsKNOLLE2, OsCTP1, OsCycB1.1, OsCycB2.1, and OsCDC20.1 were increased by OsWRKY71 knockdown and inversely regulated by OsWRKY71 overexpression, indicating that OsmiR156 enhances cold stress tolerance by regulating the expression of transcription factor genes in plant cells. These results will increase our understanding of microRNA-related cold stress tolerance in different plant species, including monocotyledonous, dicotyledonous, and gymnosperm plant species, and will be valuable in plant molecular biotechnology.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge internal grants. We are also thankful to the central instrumentation facility of NIPGR for providing the necessary experimental setup. We thank the Council of Scientific Research and the University Commission. We further thank Dr. Prasad for support. The authors are grateful to Dr. Neale, Dr. Page, Dr. Bradshaw, Dr. Lischewski, Dr. Thompson, and Dr. Andersen-Ranberg for their critical reading and suggestions during the preparation of this manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the Education Committee of Hubei Providence of China and by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31270740).

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  1. College of Horticulture and Gardening, Yangtze University, Jingzhou, Hubei, 434025, People’s Republic of China

    Mingqin Zhou & Wei Tang

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  1. Mingqin Zhou
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  2. Wei Tang
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WT and MZ conceived and designed the experiments. WT wrote the paper. WT and MZ performed the experiment and analyzed the data. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Wei Tang.

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Communicated by S. Hohmann.

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Zhou, M., Tang, W. MicroRNA156 amplifies transcription factor-associated cold stress tolerance in plant cells. Mol Genet Genomics 294, 379–393 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00438-018-1516-4

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