Advances on the application of non-coding RNA in crop improvement

Abstract

Thanks to committed plant breeding researchers over the few decades, many problems associated with food supply and qualities have been improved. Food security is an exceptionally serious worldwide issue via world climate change, the increase in human population, and the use of plants for bioethanol production in current years. Improved tolerance to abiotic and biotic stress, resistance to herbicides, improved yield, and plants with wonderful nutritional value are essential goals of crop improvement. RNAi applications are the modern innovation that can assist in the solution for these issues. A natural protection mechanism against invading viruses, nucleic acids, and transposons non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), are identified as effector molecules in RNA-mediated gene silencing and used in the genetic modification of crops. These ncRNAs are concerned with the regulation of growth, development, and response to stress at the transcriptional and translational levels. Improving crop yields is the final purpose of molecular plant breeding. ncRNAs, along with transfer RNAs (tRNAs) and ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs), as well as small non-coding RNAs (sncRNAs) and the long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), have been recognized as essential regulators of gene expression in plants in plant immunity and adaptation to abiotic and abiotic stages biotic stress.