The majority of plant target mRNAs contain a single miRNA-complementary site where corresponding miRNAs perfectly complement, thereby cleaving the target mRNAs ( Kidner and Martienssen, 2005 Nithin et al., 2015). Mature miRNAs regulate gene expression in two ways (i) by inhibiting translation or (ii) by degrading coding mRNAs by perfect or near-perfect complement with the target mRNAs ( Carrington and Ambros, 2003 Djuranovic et al., 2011 Nithin et al., 2015). MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small endogenous non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs Ambros, 2001) of 20 to 24-nucleotide in length, originating from long self-complementary precursors ( Bartel, 2004 Nithin et al., 2015). While briefing miRNAs, lncRNAs and applications of the CRISPR-Cas technology in human and animals, this review essentially elaborates several strategies to overcome the challenges of applying the CRISPR-Cas technology in editing ncRNAs in plants and the future perspective of this field. Hitherto, the CRISPR-Cas technology has been exclusively used in vertebrate systems to engineer miRNA/lncRNAs, but it is still relatively unexplored in plants. Information about targeting non-coding genes is scarce. However, all these studies are focused on protein coding genes. The CRISPR-Cas technology has been successfully applied in model plants such as Arabidopsis and tobacco and important crops like wheat, maize, and rice. CRISPR loci are transcribed into ncRNA and eventually form a functional complex with Cas9 and further guide the complex to cleave complementary invading DNA. There has been a breakthrough in the technology of genome editing, the CRISPR-Cas9 (clustered regulatory interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated protein 9) technology, in the last decade. Plant lncRNAs also are important regulators of gene expression in diverse biological processes. Plant lncRNAs are transcribed by different RNA polymerases, showing diverse structural features. Alternatively, long ncRNAs (lncRNAs) are a large and diverse class of transcribed ncRNAs whose length exceed that of 200 nucleotides.
Besides their direct involvement in developmental processes, plant miRNAs play key roles in gene regulatory networks and varied biological processes. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small endogenous ncRNAs of 18–24 nucleotides in length that originates from long self-complementary precursors. Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) have emerged as versatile master regulator of biological functions in recent years. 2Computational Structural Biology Lab, Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India.1Department of Biotechnology, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, India.
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