ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Functional and Applied Plant Genomics
This article is part of the Research TopicTraits Evaluation and Gene Mining of Plant Germplasm ResourcesView all 5 articles
MicroRNA identification and expression analysis of wheat thermo-sensitive male sterility line BNS366 for fertility transformation
Provisionally accepted
- 1Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China
- 2Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Canada
- 3Hubei Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Wuhan, China
- 4Xiangyang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Xiangyang, China
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Thermo-sensitive male sterile lines are the key element in the two-line hybrid system of wheat, some specific microRNAs (miRNAs) are involved in the development of anthers in plants, being an important cause of male sterility. Bai-Nong Sterility 366 (BNS366) is an excellent material for the study of thermo-sensitive male sterility, but no information is available on the role of miRNAs affecting the fertility in BNS366. In this study, miRNAs in the pollen mother cell periods and the tetrad periods of the low-temperature sterile and normal fertile anthers of BNS366 were characterized by RNA-seq. MiRNA sequencing identified 22 differentially expressed known miRNAs and 8 novel miRNAs with the largest differential expression folds. Prediction of target genes of the 30 miRNAs yielded 25 target genes, which were highly expressed in wheat spike, and mainly regulated by 13 miRNAs. GO analysis showed that these target genes mainly related to DNA replication and transcription. Five miRNAs (miR9662a, miR5062, miR9662b, miR9653a, and miR9672b) showed opposite expression patterns with their respective potential target genes in BNS366 anther of different fertility. TraesCS5D02G192700 is a potential target gene for miR5062, and encodes an argonaute protein, which functions in meiotic prophase germ cell development and maintenance of meiosis, presumably playing an important role in the fertility transformation process of BNS366. miRNA-target gene regulatory network involved in the fertility restoration of BNS366 at low temperatures was proposed.
Keywords: wheat1, miRNA2, RNA-seq3, male sterility4, self-fruitfulness rate5
Received: 08 Jul 2025; Accepted: 31 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Hu, Song, Sun, Huang, Zhang and Ren. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Daorong Zhang, dongfanghong1998@163.com
Xifeng Ren, renxifeng@mail.hzau.edu.cn
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