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Small RNAs – The Big Players in Developing Salt-Resistant Plants

stress-sensitive plants. It is well accepted among interdisciplinary researchers

that there is an urgent need to address the negative impacts of unfavorable

environmental constraints. Unfavorable environmental factors like high

salinity are extremely decisive to the ecosystem and its components as these

factors have a multitudinous negative impact on plants. For a few decades,

scientists have discovered many strategies and tactics to protect the plants

from salt-induced stress. Among the strategies to protect plants from salt

stress, Small RNA-based technologies are much appreciated by many plant

scientists. Since their initial identification in Arabidopsis, sRNAs have been,

repeatedly demonstrated to be a key regulator of gene expression across all

phases of plant development in mediating a defense response against several

environmental stresses including soil salinity (Liu et al., 2008; Sunkar &

Zhu, 2004). Plant miRNAs and siRNA generally execute their biological

function via negative regulation of specific targets, and there is no space for

doubt that they are the vital player in the regulation of stress tolerance and

to achieve stress-resistant cultivars they are the striker. The fact is further

supported by numerous findings related to plant responses under salinity

and involvement of sRNA to influence stress response, which was published

since the invention of RNA interference in the late 1990s. However, the

field of sRNA biology is a big ocean of knowledge, and only a few drops

have been achieved by the advanced technology of the present era and the

complete dedication of researchers. Betterment of technology more involve­

ment of researchers will surely uncover many underlying phenomena of

plant metabolism and stress response in the near future.

KEYWORDS

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glycophyte

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halophyte

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microRNAs

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RNA interference

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salinity

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salt resistance

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small RNA

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trans-acting siRNA