Advances on microRNAs regulated flower development of higher plant | 调控植物花发育的miRNAs的研究进展

Chinese. 花发育是高等植物生长发育过程中的重要事件，可剖分为开花诱导、花的起始和花器官发育3个阶段，是由多种基因参与的十分复杂的调控过程。20年来，人们应用克隆、诱变和突变体等研究技术从模式植物中分离和鉴定了大量调控花发育的功能基因或调控因子，其中，microRNA(miRNA)是本世纪初才发现的一类新的调控因子。miRNA是生物体内长度约为21个核苷酸的非编码小RNA，通过与靶mRNA的互补配对而在转录后水平上对基因的表达进行负调控，导致mRNA的降解或翻译抑制。大量研究证实miRNA在花发育中起着重要的作用。文章重点综述了植物miRNA的作用机制、其功能研究方法及7个miRNA家族在花发育中的生物功能，并对其未来的发展方向进行了展望。

English. Flower development is a very important event in the development of higher plant, which can be divided into floral induction, floral initiation and floral organ specification. The genetic control of flower development is a very complex network of regulatory genes. In the past 2 to 3 decades, many genes or regulators of flower development have been identified and cloned in model plants, with a new class of regulatory factors- microRNAs(miRNAs) that were found at the beginning of this century. miRNAs are small approximately 21-nucleotide RNAs that function posttranscriptionally to regulate gene activity. miRNAs function by binding to complementary sites in target genes causing mRNA degradation and/or translational repression of the target. miRNAs function broadly to control many aspects of plant development. This review focuses on molecular mechanisms, the methodologies of miRNA study, and the roles of 7 miRNA families in flower development from the earliest stages(floral induction) to very late stages(floral organ cell type specification), and further research focuses are also discussed.