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Artificial microRNA mediated gene silencing in plants: progress and perspectives

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Abstract

Homology based gene silencing has emerged as a convenient approach for repressing expression of genes in order to study their functions. For this purpose, several antisense or small interfering RNA based gene silencing techniques have been frequently employed in plant research. Artificial microRNAs (amiRNAs) mediated gene silencing represents one of such techniques which can utilize as a potential tool in functional genomics. Similar to microRNAs, amiRNAs are single-stranded, approximately 21 nt long, and designed by replacing the mature miRNA sequences of duplex within pre-miRNAs. These amiRNAs are processed via small RNA biogenesis and silencing machinery and deregulate target expression. Holding to various refinements, amiRNA technology offers several advantages over other gene silencing methods. This is a powerful and robust tool, and could be applied to unravel new insight of metabolic pathways and gene functions across the various disciplines as well as in translating observations for improving favourable traits in plants. This review highlights general background of small RNAs, improvements made in RNAi based gene silencing, implications of amiRNA in gene silencing, and describes future themes for improving value of this technology in plant science.

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Acknowledgments

Authors acknowledge the financial support from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi, India in the form of Network Project (BSC-0107). DS thankfully acknowledge the CSIR for Senior Research Fellowship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-National Botanical Research Institute (CSIR-NBRI), Rana Pratap Marg, Lucknow, 226001, India

    Manish Tiwari, Deepika Sharma & Prabodh Kumar Trivedi

  2. Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Anusandhan Bhawan, 2 Rafi Marg, New Delhi, 110001, India

    Deepika Sharma & Prabodh Kumar Trivedi

Authors
  1. Manish Tiwari
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  2. Deepika Sharma
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  3. Prabodh Kumar Trivedi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Prabodh Kumar Trivedi.

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Manish Tiwari and Deepika Sharma have contributed equally.

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Tiwari, M., Sharma, D. & Trivedi, P.K. Artificial microRNA mediated gene silencing in plants: progress and perspectives. Plant Mol Biol 86, 1–18 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-014-0224-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-014-0224-7

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