Qi Yijun's research group from the School of Life Sciences discovered the function of tRNA-derived small RNAs in plant antifungal defense responses

Transfer RNA (tRNA) is an RNA molecule composed of 76-90 nucleotides (nt).

In plants, 5'tRNA half and 5'tsRNA are the two most abundant types of tRNA-derived small RNAs, but their production mechanism and biological functions are still unclear

A related research paper "A 5'tRNA-Ala-derived small RNA regulates anti-fungal defense in plants" (A 5'tRNA-Ala-derived small RNA regulates anti-fungal defense in plants) was published online on October 22, 2021 "SCIENCE CHINA Life Sciences"

In this research, Qi Yijun’s group first developed a small RNA library construction and sequencing method based on RtcB ligase (RtcB sRNA-seq) based on the characteristics of tRNA-derived small RNAs, which can simultaneously capture and quantitatively distinguish the ends Small RNAs with 3'hydroxyl and 3'phosphate/cyclic phosphate

Figure 1 Plant tRNA can be cleaved to produce a large number of small RNAs

The research further focused on exploring the production mechanism and biological functions of 5′ tsRNAs

Figure 2 RNS1 and RNS3 negatively regulate the defense response of plants to Botrytis cinerea

The study finally clarified the function of one of the most abundant 5'tsRNA, 19-nt 5'tsR-Ala

Based on the above results, this study puts forward a working model of 5′ tsR-Ala regulating plant antifungal defense response in plants (Figure 3)

Figure 3 The working model of 5′ tsR-Ala in the regulation of plant antifungal defense response

Professor Qi Yijun from the School of Life Sciences of Tsinghua University is the corresponding author of the paper

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