水稻AGO709蛋白结合miR393*调控水稻抗病毒机制

RNA沉默通路是植物抗病毒的保守机制，而AGO蛋白是其核心组分，通过结合小RNA进入RNA诱导沉默复合体（RISC）发挥关键作用。目前，AGO蛋白在水稻抗病毒机制中的研究十分有限。我们前期研究发现病毒侵染能够显著诱导水稻AGO709的高表达，而ago709突变体表现出对水稻病毒的高度敏感，揭示AGO709是水稻抗病毒所必需的。通过深度测序发现AGO709在病毒侵染后富集了大量的miR393*，而miR393*调控的靶基因FBLs是生长素受体家族中的关键基因，暗示AG709-miR393*-FBLs在水稻抗病毒中的重要作用，但其具体机制尚不十分清楚。本项目拟通过遗传学和生物信息学等方法，利用水稻-病毒互作体系，系统揭示AGO709结合miR393*靶向FBLs在调控水稻抗病毒中的作用新机制，探索AGO709-miR393*能否作为广谱抗病毒资源用于水稻抗病毒育种。

RNA silencing pathway is a conserved antiviral mechanism in plants. AGO proteins are the core components in the antiviral pathway and are associated with small RNA to form RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). So far, how AGO proteins function in the antiviral silencing in rice is not well understood. Our previous study showed that virus infection significantly induced AGO709 expression, and ago709 mutant were more susceptible to virus infection, demonstrating that AGO709 is essential for rice antiviral immunity. By deep sequencing we found that a lot of miR393*, which targets FBLs, the key auxin receptors genes, were enriched in AGO709-associated complex after virus infection, suggesting an important role of AGO709-miR393*-FBLs in rice antiviral response. But the mechanism underlying is still not clear. In this study, we will use genetic approach combined with bioinformatics to comprehensively reveal the mechanism of how AGO709 is associated with miR393* to target FBLs for regulating rice antiviral response, and explore whether the AGO709-miR393* can be used as broad-spectrum antiviral resources in rice antiviral breeding.