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AOBPreview published online on October 24, 2008
Annals of Botany, doi:10.1093/aob/mcn205
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Differential expression of miRNAs in response to salt stress in maize roots

Dong Ding1, Lifang Zhang2, Hang Wang1, Zhijie Liu1, Zuxin Zhang3 and Yonglian Zheng1,*

1 National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, P.R. China
2 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724, USA
3 College of Agronomy, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding 071001, P.R. China

* For correspondence. E-mail yonglianzheng{at}gmail.com

Received: 24 July 2008    Returned for revision: 22 August 2008    Accepted: 15 September 2008   

Background and Aims: Corn (Zea mays) responds to salt stress via changes in gene expression, metabolism and physiology. This adaptation is achieved through the regulation of gene expression at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been found to act as key regulating factors of post-transcriptional gene expression. However, little is known about the role of miRNAs in plants' responses to abiotic stresses.

Methods: A custom µparafloTM microfluidic array containing release version 10.1 plant miRNA probes (http://microrna.sanger.ac.uk/) was used to discover salt stress-responsive miRNAs using the differences in miRNA expression between the salt-tolerant maize inbred line ‘NC286’ and the salt-sensitive maize line ‘Huangzao4’.

Key Results: miRNA microarray hybridization revealed that a total of 98 miRNAs, from 27 plant miRNA families, had significantly altered expression after salt treatment. These miRNAs displayed different activities in the salt response, and miRNAs belonging to the same miRNA family showed the same behaviour. Interestingly, 18 miRNAs were found which were only expressed in the salt-tolerant maize line, and 25 miRNAs that showed a delayed regulation pattern in the salt-sensitive line. A gene model was proposed that showed how miRNAs could regulate the abiotic stress-associated process and the gene networks coping with the stress.

Conclusions: Salt-responsive miRNAs are involved in the regulation of metabolic, morphological and physiological adaptations of maize seedlings at the post-transcriptional level. The miRNA genotype-specific expression model might explain the distinct salt sensitivities between maize lines.

Key words: Salt stress, Zea mays, microRNA, microarray, transcription regulation, Zea mays


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