TAS3 miR390-dependent loci in non-vascular land plants: towards a comprehensive reconstruction of the gene evolutionary history

Sergey Y Morozov; Irina A Milyutina; Tatiana N Erokhina; Liudmila V Ozerova; Alexey V Troitsky; Andrey G Solovyev

doi:10.7717/peerj.4636

TAS3 miR390-dependent loci in non-vascular land plants: towards a comprehensive reconstruction of the gene evolutionary history

PeerJ. 2018 Apr 16:6:e4636. doi: 10.7717/peerj.4636. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Sergey Y Morozov¹, Irina A Milyutina¹, Tatiana N Erokhina², Liudmila V Ozerova³, Alexey V Troitsky¹, Andrey G Solovyev^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia.
² Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia.
³ Tsitsin Main Botanical Garden, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia.
⁴ Institute of Molecular Medicine, Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, Moscow, Russia.

Abstract

Trans-acting small interfering RNAs (ta-siRNAs) are transcribed from protein non-coding genomic TAS loci and belong to a plant-specific class of endogenous small RNAs. These siRNAs have been found to regulate gene expression in most taxa including seed plants, gymnosperms, ferns and mosses. In this study, bioinformatic and experimental PCR-based approaches were used as tools to analyze TAS3 and TAS6 loci in transcriptomes and genomic DNAs from representatives of evolutionary distant non-vascular plant taxa such as Bryophyta, Marchantiophyta and Anthocerotophyta. We revealed previously undiscovered TAS3 loci in plant classes Sphagnopsida and Anthocerotopsida, as well as TAS6 loci in Bryophyta classes Tetraphidiopsida, Polytrichopsida, Andreaeopsida and Takakiopsida. These data further unveil the evolutionary pathway of the miR390-dependent TAS3 loci in land plants. We also identified charophyte alga sequences coding for SUPPRESSOR OF GENE SILENCING 3 (SGS3), which is required for generation of ta-siRNAs in plants, and hypothesized that the appearance of TAS3-related sequences could take place at a very early step in evolutionary transition from charophyte algae to an earliest common ancestor of land plants.

Keywords: ARF genes; Bryophytes; Charophyte algae; Micro RNA; Silencing; Small interfering RNA; Trans-acting RNA.

Grants and funding

The work of Sergey Morozov, Tatiana Erokhina and Andrey Solovyev was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (grant 17-14-01032). The work of Irina Milyutina and Alexey Troitsky was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant 18-04-00574-a). The work of Liudmila Ozerova was supported by the State Assignment of MBG RAS on the base of the Unique Scientific Installation “The Fund Greenhouse”. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.