Fan Luo^1,3,4 , Mengmeng Yin^1,3,4 , Xiaoli Zhou^1,3,4 , Juan Li^1,2,3 , Qian Zhu^1,2,3 , Cui Zhang^1,3 , Lijuan Chen^1,2,3 , Dongsun Lee^1,2,3

1 Rice Research Institute, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, 650201, Yunnan, China;
2 The Key Laboratory for Crop Production and Smart Agriculture of Yunnan Province, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, 650201, Yunnan, China;
3 College of Agronomy and Biotechnology, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, 650201, Yunnan, China;
4 Panxi Crops Research and Utilization Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Xichang University, Xichang, 615013, Sichuan, China
Author    Correspondence author
Genomics and Applied Biology, 2024, Vol. 15, No. 3   
Received: 08 Mar., 2024    Accepted: 18 Apr., 2024    Published: 05 May, 2024

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cold stress is a significant abiotic factor that adversely affects rice (Oryza sativa) growth and productivity. This systematic review aims to elucidate the integrated regulatory networks of microRNAs (miRNAs) and transcriptome in rice response to cold stress and their underlying mechanisms. Various studies have demonstrated that miRNAs play crucial roles in regulating gene expression under cold stress by targeting specific mRNAs for degradation or translational repression. For instance, miRNAs such as osa-miR1846a/b-5p have been implicated in chilling stress tolerance by regulating genes involved in wax synthesis. Additionally, transcription factors like OsMyb4 and OsERF096 have been shown to orchestrate complex transcriptional networks that enhance cold tolerance through various signaling pathways, including those mediated by abscisic acid (ABA), jasmonic acid (JA), and reactive oxygen species (ROS). The integration of miRNA and transcriptome sequencing has revealed that miRNAs and their target genes are involved in diverse biological processes such as protein biosynthesis, redox processes, and chloroplast development, which are crucial for cold stress response. This review synthesizes current knowledge on the miRNA-mediated regulatory networks and their interaction with the transcriptome, providing insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying rice cold stress tolerance.

MicroRNAs ; Cold stress; Rice (Oryza sativa); Transcriptome; Regulatory networks