VATIS UPDATE Article

Research scientists at Texas A&M AgriLife, the United States, have discovered a ribonucleic acid (RNA), that can increase the thale cress plant’s resistance to stress from drought and salt. “The discovery could help illuminate a new pathway to engineering drought- and salt-tolerant plants, including food crops,” said Dr. Liming Xiong, at AgriLife.

The lncRNA his team discovered in thale cress plants existed in low numbers under non-stress conditions, but levels increased when the plants encountered drought or salt stress. Manually increasing the level of the lncRNA showed corresponding increases in drought and salt tolerance compared with plants where the lncRNA level was unaltered.

Most RNA direct or “code” cell machinery to produce proteins. Non-coding RNA, or ncRNA, does not direct protein production but could affect how gene expressions manifest in innumerable other ways. As such, they are considered regulators of important biological processes. The basic difference between small and long non-coding RNA is the number of nucleotides – the structural building blocks of RNA. Long have more.