PubMed · 2026-04-20
A new review maps out how plants use a hidden layer of genetic communication—molecules that 'talk' to each other to fine-tune which genes turn on or off—revealing that plants do this differently than animals and opening doors to engineer more resilient crops.
Plant ceRNA networks differ fundamentally from animal ceRNA networks in sequence characteristics, interaction modes, and biological functions, meaning animal-derived research models cannot be directly applied to plants.
ceRNAs influence a wide range of plant life processes—including growth, development, stress responses to drought and salinity, disease resistance, hormone signaling, and signal transduction—suggesting broad regulatory importance.
Current bioinformatics tools have limited predictive accuracy for plant ceRNAs, and functional validation in complex plant tissues remains technically difficult, highlighting urgent need for plant-optimized computational models and multi-omics integration.