Abstract
Plants undergo a series of developmental transitions during their life cycle. After seed germination, plants pass through two distinct phases: the vegetative phase in which leaves are produced and the reproductive phase in which flowering occurs. Based on the reproductive competence and morphological changes, the vegetative phase can be further divided into juvenile and adult phases. Here, we demonstrate that the difference between juvenile and adult phase of Nicotiana tabacum is characterized by the changes in leaf size, leaf shape as well as the number of leaf epidermal hairs (trichomes). We further show that miR156, an age-regulated microRNA, regulates juvenile-to-adult phase transition in N. tabacum. Overexpression of miR156 results in delayed juvenile-to-adult transition and flowering. Together, our results support an evolutionarily conserved role of miR156 in plant developmental transitions.
Highlights
IntroductionPlants pass through two distinct phases: the vegetative phase in which leaves are produced and the reproductive phase in which flowering occurs
Plants undergo a series of developmental transitions during their life cycle
We further show that miR156, an age-regulated microRNA, regulates juvenile-to-adult phase transition in N. tabacum
Summary
Plants pass through two distinct phases: the vegetative phase in which leaves are produced and the reproductive phase in which flowering occurs. Overexpression of miR156 results in delayed juvenile-to-adult transition and flowering. Our results support an evolutionarily conserved role of miR156 in plant developmental transitions. No. cent studies have revealed that miR156 plays critical roles in the developmental transitions including vegetative phase transition and flowering [14 17]. Being one of the evolutionarily conserved miRNAs in plants from moss to higher plants, miR156 regulates the juvenile-to-adult phase transition in many plant species, including Arabidopsis thaliana, Arabis alpina, Brassica rapa, Cardamine flexuosa, Populus x canadensis, Solanum tuberosum (potato), Solanum lycopersicum (tomato), and Zea mays [18 24]. It has been shown that the mature miR156 is highly enriched in seedlings and gradually decreased with time [25 29]. miR156 overexpression causes a severe delay in flowering, especially under non-inductive condition [23,25,30]
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