Wheat is a strategic grain crop in the world and plays a leading role in the food supply of mankind. Despite the generally increasing trend of it production, climatic changes leading to significant temperature changes, unpredictable precipitation or droughts significantly affect its’ yield. In order to prevent the negative impact of changes in climatic conditions on the productivity of this crop, it is necessary to develop innovative technologies for improving the resistance of wheat to abiotic stresses. RNA interference (RNAi) represents a new potential tool for wheat breeding by introducing small non-coding RNA sequences with the ability to silence gene expression in a sequence-specific manner. The ability to reduce the expression of a specific gene provides the possibility of acquiring a new characteristic by eliminating or accumulating certain plant traits, which leads to biochemical or phenotypic changes that original plants do not have. This review presents modern ideas about the role of microRNAs (miRNAs), which are regulators of gene expression by inhibiting the translation of their mRNA-targets through complementary binding and cleavage, in the response of wheat plants to abiotic stresses. The main stages of the gene silencing mechanism mediated by miRNA are briefly presented. Features of their biogenesis, methods of action and distribution are described in detail. The identified wheat miRNAs responding to abiotic stresses, and their putative target genes are reviewed. Examples of differential expression of miRNA under the stress impact of drought, salinity, and temperature factors are given.
Keywords: wheat, RNA interference, miRNA, resistance to abiotic stresses
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