Abstract
CO2 levels are known to have an impact on plant development and physiology. In the current study, we have investigated the effect of elevated CO2 on flowering and its regulation through miRNA mediated sugar signaling. We also unraveled small RNA transcriptome of pigeonpea under ambient and elevated CO2 conditions and predicted the targets for crucial miRNAs through computational methods. The results have shown that the delayed flowering in pigeonpea under elevated CO2 was due to an imbalance in C:N stoichiometry and differential expression pattern of aging pathway genes, including SQUAMOSA PROMOTER BINDING PROTEIN-LIKE. Furthermore, qRT PCR analysis has revealed the role of miR156 and miR172 in mediating trehalose-6-phosphate dependent flowering regulation. The current study is crucial in understanding the responses of flowering patterns in a legume crop to elevated CO2 which showed a significant impact on its final yields. Also, these findings are crucial in devising effective crop improvement strategies for developing climate resilient crops, including pigeonpea.
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Data availability
The small RNA transcriptome of Cajanus cajan has been submitted to NCBI Sequence Read Archive and BioSample databases with accession numbers PRJNA311633 and SAMN04487131. The project ID is SRP069891.
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Funding
The work was funded by DBT grant (BT/PR-12024/BCE/8/1097/2014) from Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. We greatly acknowledge ICRISAT, Patancheru, India for providing pigenopea germplasm. RVS acknowledges INSPIRE Faculty grant (DST/INSPIRE/04/2018/000214) from DST, New Delhi.
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DKU, RVS, SM and ARR designed experiments. DKU, RVS and SM performed experiments. DKU, RVS, SM and ARR analysed data, discussed results and wrote manuscript.
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Unnikrishnan, D.K., Sreeharsha, R.V., Mudalkar, S. et al. Flowering onset time is regulated by microRNA-mediated trehalose-6-phosphate signaling in Cajanus cajan L. under elevated CO2. Physiol Mol Biol Plants 30, 483–496 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12298-024-01434-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12298-024-01434-9