Non-coding RNA based regulation of the LRR-RLKs mediated immunity
Final Report Abstract
Being sessile organisms that are continuously threatened by a range of hostile environmental factors, plants have genomes that encode several families of cell surface receptors, including the expanded Leucine-Rich Repeat Receptor-Like Kinases (LRR-RLKs). These receptors perceive information about multiple environmental factors, including growth conditions and pathogen presence, and integrate them to ensure optimal fitness. Many LRR-RLKs show tightly controlled tissue-specific, developmentally regulated, or stress-induced expression patterns. It remains unclear how the plant achieves this level of expression specificity and inducibility to a wide-range of signals. The goal of my project was to determine the mechanisms by which ncRNAs regulate the growth and immune responses mediated by LRR-RLKs. The proposed investigations ran along two independent lines. In the first part, I explored the central role of LRR-RLKs in regulating the biogenesis of ncRNAs upon immune challenge. In the second part, I investigated how LRR-RLKs are regulated by these ncRNAs in order to fine-tune the plant growth and immune response. My research revealed that LRR-RLKs regulate the expression of ncRNAs both under normal and immune-challenged conditions. I also found that LRR-RLKs are significantly associated with regulatory non-coding RNA molecules. The expression of these regulatory RNAs is often tissue-specific and/or stress-induced, suggesting that their activity could explain the regulation of LRR-RLK expression in response to diverse cues. Using several examples, I have demonstrated a variety of regulatory effects and mechanisms by which these RNAs control LRR-RLK expression and function. My work provides a novel mechanism for regulation of a variety of plant growth and immune responses mediated by LRR-RLKs.
