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Title: Natural antisense transcripts associated with salinity response in alfalfa

Author
item POSTNIKOVA, OLGA - Russian Academy Of Sciences
item Nemchinov, Lev

Submitted to: The Plant Genome
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/9/2015
Publication Date: 3/20/2015
Citation: Postnikova, O., Nemchinov, L.G. 2015. Natural antisense transcripts associated with salinity response in alfalfa. The Plant Genome. 8:1-5.

Interpretive Summary: Fundamental research having practical applications is critical for improvement of alfalfa. Salinity is one of the major abiotic factors affecting alfalfa productivity. Identifying genes that control the trait of salt tolerance will provide critical insights for alfalfa breeding programs. Until recently antisense transcription that is, synthesis of the RNA molecule on the strand opposite to the coding DNA sequence, was considered as transcriptional noise. Today so called natural antisense transcripts (NATs) are recognized as important regulators of gene expression that are involved in responses to biotic and abiotic factors. Currently, no information on NATs is available on alfalfa. In our previous study, we identified a number of genes in alfalfa that are responsive to salinity stress and may play a role in salt tolerance (Postnikova et al. 2013). In this work, we analyzed some of the most interesting genes on the presence of natural antisense transcripts in order to gain insights into mechanisms of their regulation. Our results show that majority of the examined genes encoded NATs. Importantly, expression of some NATs positively correlated with the corresponding coding transcripts suggesting their involvement in regulating alfalfa responses to salt. We expect that this study will contribute toward understanding of the expression and regulation of genes associated with alfalfa development and stress tolerance and will be of interest to a wide range of researchers in academia and government organizations.

Technical Abstract: Natural antisense transcripts (NATs) are long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) complimentary to the messenger (sense) RNA (Wang et al. 2014). Many of them are involved in regulation of their own sense transcripts thus playing pivotal biological roles in all processes of organismal development and responses to the environment. In our previous study, we have identified a number of differentially expressed genes (DEG) in alfalfa plants (Medicago sativa) subjected to salinity stress (Postnikova et al. 2013). In this work, we selected several experimentally-validated DEGs implicated in response to salt and analyzed them on the presence of NAT pairs. Majority of the examined DEGs encoded NATs. Expression of some NAT pairs positively correlated with the corresponding sense transcripts (CDS) suggesting their involvement in regulating alfalfa responses to salt.