Comprehensive Mechanism of Gene Silencing and Its Role in Plant Growth and Development

Ahmed H El-Sappah; Kuan Yan; Qiulan Huang; Md Monirul Islam; Quanzi Li; Yu Wang; Muhammad Sarwar Khan; Xianming Zhao; Reyazul Rouf Mir; Jia Li; Khaled A El-Tarabily; Manzar Abbas

doi:10.3389/fpls.2021.705249

Comprehensive Mechanism of Gene Silencing and Its Role in Plant Growth and Development

Front Plant Sci. 2021 Sep 7:12:705249. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2021.705249. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Ahmed H El-Sappah^{1

2

3}, Kuan Yan^{1

3}, Qiulan Huang^{1

3

4}, Md Monirul Islam⁵, Quanzi Li^{6

7}, Yu Wang^{1

3}, Muhammad Sarwar Khan⁸, Xianming Zhao^{1

3}, Reyazul Rouf Mir⁹, Jia Li^{1

3}, Khaled A El-Tarabily^{10

11}, Manzar Abbas^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ School of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Engineering, Yibin University, Yibin, China.
² Genetics Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt.
³ Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province for Refining Sichuan Tea, Yibin, China.
⁴ College of Tea Science, Yibin University, Yibin, China.
⁵ College of Horticulture, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang, China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Tree Genetics and Breeding, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China.
⁷ Research Institute of Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China.
⁸ Center of Agriculture Biochemistry and Biotechnology, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan.
⁹ Division of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture (FoA), Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (SKUAST-K), Sopore, India.
¹⁰ Department of Biology, College of Science, United Arab Emirates University, Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates.
¹¹ Harry Butler Institute, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA, Australia.

Abstract

Gene silencing is a negative feedback mechanism that regulates gene expression to define cell fate and also regulates metabolism and gene expression throughout the life of an organism. In plants, gene silencing occurs via transcriptional gene silencing (TGS) and post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS). TGS obscures transcription via the methylation of 5' untranslated region (5'UTR), whereas PTGS causes the methylation of a coding region to result in transcript degradation. In this review, we summarized the history and molecular mechanisms of gene silencing and underlined its specific role in plant growth and crop production.

Keywords: CRISPR/Cas9; RNAi; genomics imprinting; paramutation; post-transcriptional gene silencing; transcriptional gene silencing.

Publication types

Review