Abstract
MiR408 is a conserved miRNA family in plants. Although AtmiR408 is generally regarded as participating in stress responses, it still remains obscure whether OsmiR408 modulates tolerance to environmental stress. In the current study, expression of Pre-OsmiR408 and OsmiR408 was found to be induced by cold stress, but repressed by drought stress in the rice cultivar “Kongyu 131”. By comparing the wild type and OsmiR408 transgenic lines, we found that OsmiR408 overexpression conferred enhanced cold tolerance at both the early seedling stage and the young seedling stage. On the other hand, the OsmiR408 transgenic lines exhibited decreased drought tolerance, which is further verified by greater water loss. We also predicted the putative target genes of OsmiR408 and verified the decreased expression of seven targets in OsmiR408 transgenic lines, including four phytocyanins and three atypical target genes. Among them, Os09g29390, a phytocyanin gene, and Os01g53880, an auxin responsive Aux/IAA gene, were down-regulated by cold treatment, which is opposite to the cold-induced expression of OsmiR408. Taken together, our results suggest opposite roles of OsmiR408 in plant responses to cold and drought stresses.
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We thank members of the lab for discussions and comments on this manuscript. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31671596 and 31500204), the Program for Young Scholars with Creative Talents in Heilongjiang Province (UNPYSCT-2017105), and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2017T100253).
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Mingzhe Sun and Junkai Yang are co-first authors
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Sun, M., Yang, J., Cai, X. et al. The opposite roles of OsmiR408 in cold and drought stress responses in Oryza sativa. Mol Breeding 38, 120 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11032-018-0877-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11032-018-0877-z