Requirement of MIR165A primary transcript sequence for its activity pattern in Arabidopsis leaf primordia

Abstract

miRNAs might move cell to cell and act as mobile signals in plant development, while the regulatory mechanisms of miRNA cell-to-cell movement are still unclear. Recently, in Arabidopsis leaf primordia, we revealed that miR165 from the MIR165A gene, which is expressed in the abaxial epidermal cells of leaf primordia, acts non-cell-autonomously in inner cells on the abaxial side. We proposed that not only mature miR165 sequence but also the MIR165A primary transcript sequence are required for the confinement of miR165 activity to the abaxial side of leaf primordia. The deletion analysis of the MIR165A genomic fragment showed that with a lack of the 3' region of MIR165A its activity is not confined in leaf primordia, suggesting that the full-length primary transcript of MIR165A is important for the regulatory mechanism of miRNA activity confinement in leaf primordia. It has been reported that the MIR165A transcript is predicted to be translated into the short poly peptide, proposing that the MIR165A transcript may be exported to the cytoplasm. Considering these matters, we propose a hypothesis for the confinement of miR165 activity to the abaxial side in leaf primordia dependent on the MIR165A primary transcript.