The early response of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) plants to water deprivation: Expression analysis of miRNAs and their putative target genes, and similarities with the response to salinity stress

Functional role of microRNA in the regulation of biotic and abiotic stress in agronomic plants

The increasing demand for food is the result of an increasing population. It is crucial to enhance crop yield for sustainable production. Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs) have gained importance because of their involvement in crop productivity by regulating gene transcription in numerous biological processes, such as growth, development and abiotic and biotic stresses. miRNAs are small, non-coding RNA involved in numerous other biological functions in a plant that range from genomic integrity, metabolism, growth, and development to environmental stress response, which collectively influence the agronomic traits of the crop species. Additionally, miRNA families associated with various agronomic properties are conserved across diverse plant species. The miRNA adaptive responses enhance the plants to survive environmental stresses, such as drought, salinity, cold, and heat conditions, as well as biotic stresses, such as pathogens and insect pests. Thus, understanding the detailed mechanism of the potential response of miRNAs during stress response is necessary to promote the agronomic traits of crops. In this review, we updated the details of the functional aspects of miRNAs as potential regulators of various stress-related responses in agronomic plants.

Insights from a Multi-Omics Integration (MOI) Study in Oil Palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) Response to Abiotic Stresses: Part Two-Drought

Drought and salinity are two of the most severe abiotic stresses affecting agriculture worldwide and bear some similarities regarding the responses of plants to them. The first is also known as osmotic stress and shows similarities mainly with the osmotic effect, the first phase of salinity stress. Multi-Omics Integration (MOI) offers a new opportunity for the non-trivial challenge of unraveling the mechanisms behind multigenic traits, such as drought and salinity resistance. The current study carried out a comprehensive, large-scale, single-omics analysis (SOA) and MOI studies on the leaves of young oil palm plants submitted to water deprivation. After performing SOA, 1955 DE enzymes from transcriptomics analysis, 131 DE enzymes from proteomics analysis, and 269 DE metabolites underwent MOI analysis, revealing several pathways affected by this stress, with at least one DE molecule in all three omics platforms used. Moreover, the similarities and dissimilarities in the molecular response of those plants to those two abiotic stresses underwent mapping. Cysteine and methionine metabolism (map00270) was the most affected pathway in all scenarios evaluated. The correlation analysis revealed that 91.55% of those enzymes expressed under both stresses had similar qualitative profiles, corroborating the already known fact that plant responses to drought and salinity show several similarities. At last, the results shed light on some candidate genes for engineering crop species resilient to both abiotic stresses.