Abstract

Salinity is a major limiting factor for agricultural production worldwide. A better understanding of the mechanisms of salinity stress response will aid efforts to improve plant salt tolerance. In this study, a combination of small RNA and mRNA degradome sequencing was used to identify salinity responsive-miRNAs and their targets in barley. A total of 152 miRNAs belonging to 126 families were identified, of which 44 were found to be salinity responsive with 30 up-regulated and 25 down-regulated respectively. The majority of the salinity-responsive miRNAs were up-regulated at the 8h time point, while down-regulated at the 3h and 27h time points. The targets of these miRNAs were further detected by degradome sequencing coupled with bioinformatics prediction. Finally, qRT-PCR was used to validate the identified miRNA and their targets. Our study systematically investigated the expression profile of miRNA and their targets in barley during salinity stress phase, which can contribute to understanding how miRNAs respond to salinity stress in barley and other cereal crops.

Highlights

  • Salinity is one of the most severe environment factors limiting crop yield, which affects about 954 million hectares of land worldwide at present [1]

  • Since the discovery of miR398 playing an essential role in salt tolerance in Arabidopsis [5], a large number of salt-induced miRNAs have been reported in plants up to now, such as miR159, miR160 and so on [5,6,7,8,9,10]

  • In Biological Process, we found the frequency of biosynthetic process, metabolic process, defense response and response to stimulus-related Gene Ontology (GO) terms were increased under salinity stress, whereas the growth and organ growth-related GO terms was decreased

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Summary

Introduction

Salinity is one of the most severe environment factors limiting crop yield, which affects about 954 million hectares of land worldwide at present [1]. It’s reported that more than 50% of all arable lands may be salinized because of unreasonable irrigation and climate change by 2050 [2]. Extensive studies have demonstrated that cultivation of salt-tolerant species or varieties is the most economic, efficient and practical approach to alleviate salinity stress in agricultural production [3]. Uncovering the molecular mechanism of salinity response in crops holds the promise for meeting the challenges of food demand increase and global climate change. Since the discovery of miR398 playing an essential role in salt tolerance in Arabidopsis [5], a large number of salt-induced miRNAs have been reported in plants up to now, such as miR159, miR160 and so on [5,6,7,8,9,10]

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