Translational control and RNA decay in beneficial plant-microbe interactions

ZANETTI MARIA EUGENIA

Seattle

Congreso; International congress of Arabidopsis Research (ICAR 2021-Virtual).; 2021

The North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee (NAASC)

Post-transcriptional control of gene expression allows plants to rapidly adapt to changes in their environment. Under low nitrogen conditions, legume plants engage into a symbiosis with soil bacteria that results in the formation of root nodules, where bacteria are allocated and fix atmospheric nitrogen for the plant?s benefit. Recent studies of our lab highlighted the importance of small RNA-mediated mechanisms in the control of bacterial infection and nodule organogenesis. We identified miRNAs and siRNAs thatInternational Conference on Arabidopsis Research - ICAR 2021 | 21?25 June 25contribute to modulate nodule organogenesis and bacterial infection during the nitrogen fixing symbiosis such as the module composed by the microRNA390 and the transcript TAS3, which produces trans-acting siRNAs that target the Auxin Response Factors (ARF2), ARF3 and ARF4. In addition, by applying the TRAP (Translating Ribosome Affinity Purification) technology combined with RNA-seq (TRAP-seq) we have found that selective mRNA translation also contributes to rapidly modulate the expression of nodulation genes in a cell-specific manner during symbiosis. Translationally regulated transcripts include long non-coding RNAs and mRNAs encoding proteins involved in chromatin remodeling, DNA and histone methylation, as well as mRNAs that control mRNA stability and decay. We will present and discuss our recent advances made on the regulation of mRNA stability and translatability, and the emerging roles of long non-coding RNAs in the root nodule symbiosis.