Plant Extracellular Vesicles with Complex Molecular Cargo: A Cross-Kingdom Conduit for MicroRNA-Directed RNA Silencing

TL;DR

Plant extracellular vesicles carry microRNAs that help plants communicate, adapt to stress, and defend against pathogens, with potential applications in agriculture.

Contribution

This paper highlights the role of plant extracellular vesicles in delivering microRNAs for cross-kingdom communication and defense mechanisms.

Findings

Plant extracellular vesicles contain diverse molecular cargo, including microRNAs crucial for gene regulation.

Specific miRNA cohorts are selectively packaged into extracellular vesicles in response to environmental stress or pathogen attack.

PEVs can deliver miRNAs to pathogen sites or even to pathogens themselves, aiding plant defense.

Abstract

Plants secrete a heterogenous population of membrane-enclosed extracellular vesicles that harbour an incredible diversity of molecular cargo. It is the complexity of the molecular cargo encapsulated by plant extracellular vesicles (PEVs) which facilitates the fundamental role PEVs play in mediating communication and signalling. PEV molecular cargo is composed of a diverse mixture of lipids, metabolites, proteins, and nucleic acids. Among the nucleic acids, the microRNA (miRNA) class of small regulatory RNA can be viewed as one of the most biologically relevant. Plant miRNAs regulate the expression of genes essential for all aspects of development as well as to control the gene expression changes required to drive the adaptive and defensive responses of plants to environmental stress and pathogen attack. Furthermore, recent research has shown that specific miRNA cohorts are selectively packaged into PEVs as part of the molecular-level response of a plant to its growth environment. For example, PEVs are loaded with a specific miRNA population for their targeted delivery to sites of pathogen infection in the host plant, or for cross-kingdom delivery of host-plant-encoded miRNAs to the pathogen itself. Here we outline PEV physical properties, compare PEV biogenesis pathways, detail the composition of PEV molecular cargo, and go on to provide detailed commentary on the role of PEV-delivered miRNAs in plant development, environmental stress adaptation, and pathogen defence. We conclude this article with a proposal for the potential future use of PEVs and their miRNA cargo in agriculture and aquaculture.

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