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Updated: Sep 22, 2025

Author Spotlight: Streamlining Rice Breeding with CRISPR/Cas for Obtaining Optimal Phenotypic and Agronomic Traits
Published on: January 3, 2025
The Potential Role of RNA Structure in Crop Molecular Breeding
Wenqing Sun1, Ling Ding1, Huakun Zhang1
1Key Laboratory of Molecular Epigenetics of the Ministry of Education, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China.
Abstract:
The continually growing human population creates a concomitantly increasing demand for nutritious crops with high yields. Advances in high throughput sequencing technologies have revealed the genetic architecture of major crops. This includes extensive information enabling comprehensive genetic markers for breeding selection, new gene discoveries, and novel gene regulatory strategies for crop editing. RNA structure is an important type of genetic feature, essential for post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. Here, we summarize recent advances in genome-wide RNA structure studies in crops and review the associated RNA structure-mediated regulation of gene expression. We also discuss the functional importance of those single nucleotide variations that induce large RNA structure disparities. Lastly, we discuss the potential role of RNA structure in crop molecular breeding.
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