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Plant Physiology 138:1903-1913 (2005) © 2005 American Society of Plant Biologists RNA Silencing of Single and Multiple Members in a Gene Family of Rice1,[w]Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, 8916–5 Takayama, Ikoma 630–0101, Japan
RNA silencing with inverted repeat (IR) constructs has been used to suppress gene expression in various organisms. However, the transitive RNA-silencing effect described in plants may preclude the use of RNA silencing for a gene family. Here, we show that, in rice (Oryza sativa), transitive RNA silencing (spreading of double-stranded RNA along the target mRNA) occurred with the green fluorescent protein transgene but not with the endogenous phytoene desaturase gene. We fused IR copies of unique 3' untranslated regions derived from the rice OsRac gene family to a strong promoter and stably introduced them into rice. Each of the seven members of the OsRac gene family was specifically suppressed by its respective IR construct. We also examined IR constructs in which multiple 3' untranslated regions were fused and showed that three members of the OsRac gene family were effectively suppressed by a single construct. Using highly conserved regions of the two members of the OsRac gene family, we also suppressed the expression of all members of the gene family with variable efficiencies. These results suggest that RNA silencing is a useful method for the functional analysis of gene families in rice and other plants.
RNA silencing is a form of gene suppression that occurs at the level of RNA and includes posttranscriptional gene silencing in plants and fungi and RNA interference (RNAi) in Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila, and animals (Matzke et al., 2001  ; Waterhouse et al., 2001; Hannon, 2002; Plasterk, 2002; Baulcombe, 2004). Two types of RNA, double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) and short interfering RNA (siRNA), play key roles in this phenomenon (Fire et al., 1998; Waterhouse et al., 1998; Hamilton and Baulcombe, 1999). Extensive genetic and biochemical studies in various species have yielded a model of RNA silencing in which trigger dsRNA, either introduced into the cell or transcribed from transgenes, is cleaved into small siRNAs of 21 to 26 nucleotides (nt) by an RNase termed Dicer (Bernstein et al., 2001). The siRNAs are incorporated into an RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) to be associated with the target mRNAs (Hammond et al., 2000), and the activated RISC functions to degrade the target mRNAs and suppress gene expression at various levels (Matzke et al., 2001; Waterhouse et al., 2001; Hannon, 2002; Plasterk, 2002; Meister and Tuschl, 2004).
RNA silencing has been successfully used in plants to suppress specific gene functions (Waterhouse et al., 1998
It is assumed that transitive RNA silencing is caused by RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP; Tang et al., 2003 In this study, we examined whether transitive RNA silencing machinery is conserved in a monocot, rice (Oryza sativa). Our results showed that transitive RNA silencing of the gfp transgene, but not of endogenous genes, occurs in both 5' and 3' orientations in rice. We also examined whether RNA silencing can be used to suppress the expression of individual members of a gene family in rice that have high sequence similarity with one another using a diverged 3' untranslated region (UTR) as a trigger dsRNA. We also tested whether multiple genes of a gene family can be simultaneously silenced by a single IR construct. We further evaluated whether a single IR construct with high sequence similarity in the conserved region can suppress the expression of other members of the gene family. Our results strongly suggest that the RNA silencing machinery is highly conserved in rice and that dsRNA-mediated RNA silencing is a useful tool for the functional analysis of highly conserved multigene families in rice and plants.
Transitive RNA Silencing in Rice
To test whether transitive RNA silencing (spreading of dsRNA along the target mRNA) occurs in rice, we performed an experiment in which the gfp gene was used as the target of RNA silencing. We designed an IR construct that would be transcribed into dsRNA consisting of an internal 314-bp region of the gfp gene (Fig. 1A). As a linker, we inserted a 920-bp fragment of the gus gene to facilitate the quantification of the trigger RNA (Miki and Shimamoto, 2004
siRNA, a molecular marker for dsRNA-based gene silencing, was detected. Two size classes of siRNA have been reported in plants showing RNA silencing (Hamilton et al., 2002 ; Papp et al., 2003; Miki and Shimamoto, 2004). Therefore, we examined the transformed rice plants for siRNA by purifying their low-molecular-weight RNAs. For siRNA analysis, three probes were used: the region 5' to the trigger dsRNA, the region used to produce the trigger dsRNA, and the region 3' to the trigger dsRNA. Interestingly, we detected not only siRNA corresponding to the trigger RNA region but also siRNAs corresponding to regions both 5' and 3' to the trigger (Fig. 1D). These secondary siRNAs belong exclusively to the 21-nt siRNA class, while the short and long classes of siRNA (the 21 nt and 24 nt) were detected for the trigger RNA region (Fig. 1D). These results indicate that transitive RNA silencing also occurs for the gfp gene and that spreading of dsRNA along the gfp mRNA occurs in both the 5' and 3' orientations in a monocot, rice.
We used DNA oligomers as size markers to detect siRNA signals. Since it has been reported that DNA oligonucleotides migrate approximately 10% faster than RNA markers of equal length (Sambrook et al., 1989
PDS encodes phytoene desaturase and is a single-copy gene in the rice genome. PDS has been used to examine virus-induced gene silencing in both dicots and monocots because of its albino mutant phenotype caused by a lack of carotenoids (Holzberg et al., 2002
For siRNA analysis, three probes were also used: the region 5' to the trigger dsRNA, the region used to produce the trigger dsRNA, and the region 3' to the trigger dsRNA. Two size classes of PDS siRNA were detected when the region for the trigger dsRNA was used as a probe (Fig. 2C). However, no signals were detected when either the region 5' to the trigger dsRNA or the region 3' to the trigger dsRNA was used as a probe. These results are in sharp contrast to those obtained from the 35S-gfp transgenic rice plants carrying the gfp-IR gene (Fig. 1). These results indicate that no transitive RNA silencing occurs for the endogenous PDS gene and, thus, that spreading of dsRNA does not occur along the PDS mRNA in either the 5' or the 3' direction.
To examine the effectiveness of RNA silencing for the gene-specific suppression of members of a gene family, we chose the OsRac gene family (Fig. 3; Supplemental Fig. 1; Kawasaki et al., 1999
We designed IR constructs transcribing dsRNA consisting of a 220- to 370-bp fragment from the gene-specific region of each OsRac gene (Fig. 3, C and D) and transformed them into rice. Reverse transcription (RT)-PCR analyses of OsRac mRNAs in transgenic rice plants and transgenic suspension cultures showed that each member of the OsRac gene family was suppressed by its corresponding construct (Fig. 4A). Results of western-blot analysis showed that the OsRac1 protein levels in OsRac1-silenced lines were also very low (data not shown). We analyzed a total of 57 independent transgenic plants and 39 suspension cell cultures and observed efficient suppression of OsRac mRNA in all of them.
Quantitative analysis of all OsRac mRNA levels by real-time PCR in OsRac-silenced suspension cultures showed that the levels of OsRac mRNAs were less than 10% of those in the wild type (Fig. 4C). No clear morphological abnormalities have been observed in the transgenic rice plants. The orientation of the IR in the vector with respect to the promoter did not affect the efficiency of suppression (Fig. 3, C and D). Taken together, our results show that no detectable transitive RNA silencing occurs in the OsRac gene family. The presence of OsRac siRNA was evaluated in both the gene-specific region from which each dsRNA was produced and the conserved coding region. Two size classes of siRNA (21 nt and 24 nt) were detected only when the gene-specific regions were probed; siRNA derived from the conserved coding regions was not detected (Fig. 4B), indicating that spreading of dsRNA along the endogenous OsRac mRNA did not occur in the 5' direction. These results support the above findings that no transitive RNA silencing occurred among the members of the OsRac gene family (Fig. 4A) and are consistent with the results obtained for PDS-silenced plants, in which the siRNAs for the PDS genes were only detected in the region from which the dsRNA was transcribed (Fig. 2C). They further support the observation that transitive RNA silencing of endogenous genes may not occur in rice with high frequency.
To determine whether a single RNA silencing construct can effectively and specifically suppress the expression of several corresponding genes, we designed IR constructs transcribing dsRNA containing chimeric gene-specific regions of OsRac genes (Fig. 5A; Supplemental Figs. 1 and 2). The OsRac1 and OsRac5 gene-targeting RNA silencing constructs were named 1/5. The other constructs linked the OsRac1, OsRac5, and OsRac3 (1/5/3) or the OsRac1, OsRac5, OsRac3, and OsRac7 (1/5/3/7) gene-specific sequences, respectively (Fig. 5A). RT-PCR analyses of OsRac mRNAs in transgenic rice showed that specific suppression of multiple genes in the OsRac gene family could be achieved by a single chimeric RNA-silencing construct (Fig. 5B). However, the levels of silencing seemed to decline as the number of genes increased (Fig. 5B).
Results of siRNA analysis showed that two size classes of siRNA were detected when the region for the trigger dsRNA was used as a probe and that no spreading of dsRNA along OsRac mRNAs occurred in the 5' direction (Fig. 5C). These results were consistent with the results of the single IR constructs (Fig. 4B). Interestingly, the levels of siRNA apparently decreased with increasing the length of the IR region. This observation may explain the lower level of silencing observed with the chimeric 1/5/3/7 construct (Fig. 5, B and D). For a more accurate quantitative analysis of all OsRac mRNA levels in OsRac-silenced transgenic rice, real-time PCR analysis was performed on five independent transgenic lines for each chimeric RNA-silencing construct. OsRac mRNAs were specifically suppressed by the corresponding multiple OsRac gene constructs (Fig. 5D). However, comparing the levels of OsRac1 and OsRac5 mRNA targeted by the three chimeric constructs, the levels of suppression were more significantly decreased in 1/5/3/7 than in 1/5 (Fig. 5, B and C). In addition to these two-to-four-gene chimeric analyses, we also tested a construct in which all members of the OsRac gene family were targeted by a seven-gene-specific dsRNA. However, no significant target mRNA suppression was detected, and only very weak siRNA signals were found (data not shown). Therefore, these results suggest that a single chimeric IR construct can specifically and efficiently suppress three genes of the OsRac gene family and that the levels of suppression decreased when four genes were fused in a single construct (Fig. 5D).
To determine whether a single dsRNA species derived from the highly conserved coding region of one OsRac gene can effectively suppress the expression of the entire gene family, we used the highly conserved coding regions of OsRac1 or OsRac5 as trigger dsRNAs (Fig. 3, B and C; Supplemental Figs. 1 and 2). This region was 518 bp; the relative nucleotide identities of the corresponding region between OsRac1 and the other six members of the gene family are 72% to 82%, and those between OsRac5 and the other members are 73% to 82% (Fig. 3B; Supplemental Fig. 2A). The mRNA levels of OsRac1 and OsRac5 were highly suppressed in transgenic lines expressing the conserved regions of OsRac1 and OsRac5 dsRNA, respectively, while the mRNA levels of the other members of the OsRac gene family were reduced to variable degrees (Fig. 6, A, B, and E).
siRNA analysis showed that no spreading of dsRNA along OsRac1 or OsRac5 mRNA occurred in the 3' direction (Fig. 6, C and D). In transgenic plants expressing OsRac1 coding region dsRNA, no siRNA for the OsRac5 coding region was detected (Fig. 6C), although the nucleotide identity between the conserved region of OsRac1 and OsRac5 was 73% (Fig. 3B) and some reduction of mRNA levels was detected (Fig. 6E). Similarly, no siRNA for the OsRac1 coding region was detected in the transgenic plants expressing dsRNA from the OsRac5 coding region (Fig. 6D). These results suggest that suppression of the other members of the OsRac gene family was caused by the OsRac1 or OsRac5 coding region siRNA and not by transitive RNA silencing. Transgenic rice plants were generally weaker and shorter than nontransgenic control plants, suggesting that the OsRac gene family may have important functions in growth and development and that their functions are redundant (C. Letian, T. Togashi, D. Miki, T. Kawasaki, and K. Shimamoto, unpublished data). To accurately quantify the expression levels of all the OsRac genes in transgenic suspension lines, real-time PCR was performed with nine independent transgenic lines for the OsRac1 coding region dsRNA and 10 lines for the OsRac5 coding region dsRNA (Fig. 6E). This analysis indicated that levels of OsRac1 and OsRac5 mRNA in the transgenic lines were less than 1% of those in the wild type. In the OsRac1 coding region dsRNA plants, mRNA levels were reduced to less than 10% for OsRac2, OsRac3, OsRac4, and OsRac6, while the levels of OsRac5 and OsRac7 mRNAs were relatively high. In OsRac5 coding region dsRNA plants, the mRNAs for OsRac2, OsRac3, OsRac4, and OsRac6 were low, while those for OsRac1 and OsRac7 were higher. These results suggest that the suppression levels generally correlate with the overall sequence similarity between the trigger region and the targets (Fig. 3B; Supplemental Fig. 2A). However, other factors must also play a role. Although OsRac6 mRNA was effectively suppressed by the OsRac1 coding region dsRNA, the sequence similarity between the two was similar to that between OsRac5 and OsRac7 (Figs. 3B and 6E). Together, these results demonstrate that it is possible to suppress the expression of an entire gene family by using a conserved region to transcribe the dsRNA; however, the levels of suppression achieved may depend partly on the degree of sequence identity.
Lack of Transitive RNA Silencing of Endogenous Genes in Rice
In the experiments described here, we could not observe any evidence for transitive RNA silencing of endogenous genes in a monocot, rice. On the other hand, transitive RNA silencing of the gfp transgene in rice was clearly demonstrated. These findings are consistent with our observations that no spreading of siRNA along endogenous target RNA occurred in either the 5' or the 3' direction. To confirm the lack of transitivity in the RNA silencing of OsRac genes, an RNase protection assay, which is more sensitive than northern hybridization, was performed, and the results are shown in Supplemental Figure 3. The results indicate that no significant spreading of siRNA signals in either the 5' or the 3' direction was detected. Our results support the conclusion of Vaistij et al. (2002)
In C. elegans, endogenous genes are clearly subjected to transitive RNAi (Alder et al., 2003
One possible reason for the apparent lack of transitive RNA silencing of plant endogenous genes may be the low concentration of the RNA substrates (templates) for RdRP. However, since the Rubisco small subunit is not affected by the spreading of siRNA despite being the most abundant mRNA in plants (Vaistij et al., 2002
We show here that two distinct classes of siRNA can be detected in a monocot, rice, in which dsRNA-mediated RNA silencing occurs. Two siRNA-generating Dicer-like (DCL) activities have been identified in wheat-germ extract using dsRNA as a substrate (Tang et al., 2003
We showed that the siRNA derived from primary dsRNAs has two sizes, short and long (Figs. 1D, 2C, 4B, 5C, and 6C), whereas gfp-derived 5' and 3' secondary siRNAs exclusively have a short size (Fig. 1D). These results are consistent with the previous findings that secondary siRNAs produced in Arabidopsis and tobacco are exclusively of the 21-nt size (Himber et al., 2003 A long siRNA signal was detected in the nontransgenic control (wild type) when it was probed with the OsRac4 gene-specific region (Fig. 4B). No other siRNA signal was detected in the wild type. We searched for genomic sequences that could possibly transcribe dsRNA that has homology with the OsRac4 gene-specific region in the rice genomic sequence database Rice BLAST (http://RiceBLAST.dna.affrc.go.jp/), but we were not able to identify such sequences. Instead, a hairpin structure in which 47 of 57 nt could potentially form a double-stranded structure could be predicted in the 3' UTR of OsRac4 by the RNA secondary structure prediction program (http://www.genebee.msu.su/services/rna2_reduced.html; data not shown). Therefore, it is possible that the predicted hairpin structure found in the 3' UTR region of OsRac4 is a precursor of the long siRNA, although a transposon-derived dsRNA is another possibility.
We could demonstrate that a single IR construct having gene-specific regions of multiple OsRac genes can simultaneously suppress the expression of multiple genes (Fig. 5). These results show that double and triple gene knock down may be possible by a single RNA silencing construct. In our study, three genes were the maximum that could be efficiently suppressed by a single construct. The suppression efficiency was reduced when the number of fused genes was increased. The levels of silencing appeared to be proportional to the levels of siRNA detected, suggesting that the generation of siRNA was a limiting factor for efficient RNA silencing in this method. It might be more difficult for a longer RNA trigger to fold into a stable hairpin RNA structure, which is a precursor for siRNA. Alternatively, long precursor RNA may be simply less stable than shorter hairpin RNA. By further studying various parameters for IR constructs, such as the length of the trigger sequence and choice of promoters, this method could be improved and become useful for studying gene function in rice and other plants.
We found that a highly conserved region of OsRac1 or OsRac5, used for the IR construct, could suppress the mRNA expression of all seven OsRac genes to variable degrees (Fig. 6). By choosing a highly conserved sequence, it is thus possible to suppress multiple genes in a gene family with a single gene construct. The suppression efficiency was generally correlated with the level of homology between trigger and target sequences. However, other factors may also play a role. For example, although OsRac2 to 4 mRNAs were highly suppressed by OsRac5 coding region dsRNA, the sequence similarity of OsRac2 to 4 was lower than that of OsRac7 with respect to OsRac5 (Figs. 3B and 6E). In other words, suppression efficiency does not exclusively depend on sequence homology between trigger and target sequences. One factor influencing the silencing efficiency could be the concentration of the target mRNA. The mRNA expression levels of OsRac2, 3, and 4 are relatively high, while that of OsRac7 is low among the seven OsRac genes (data not shown). Therefore, it is possible that genes with higher levels of mRNA expression may be better silenced than those with lower levels of expression. This could be due to easy access of mRNA with higher amounts to siRNA and RISC; however, this idea should be tested in other genes with variable expression levels. These results suggest one possible strategy to suppress an entire gene family using a limited number of IR constructs by using highly conserved sequences in each clade of a gene family and to construct a silencing vector for each clade. This strategy could also be used to suppress the expression of a set of genes that share certain conserved sequences but do not belong to the same gene family.
The rice genome was recently sequenced, and, since a large collection of full-length cDNAs is available (Feng et al., 2002
Accession Numbers The accession numbers for the sequences described in this study are as follows: PDS, AF049356; ubq, D12629; 5S rRNA, D26370; OsRac1, BAA84492; OsRac2, BAA84493; OsRac3, BAA84494; OsRac4/OsRop4, AK061102; OsRac5/OsRacD, AK067504; OsRac6/OsRacB, AK100842; and OsRac7/OsRop5, AK058414.
In all of the RNA-silencing-triggered IR constructs made, the IR regions were amplified using the specific primers shown in Supplemental Table I and then subcloned into the pENTR/D-TOPO cloning vector (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA) to yield entry vectors. RNA silencing constructs carrying fragments of endogenous genes were made using the pANDA vector (Miki and Shimamoto, 2004
GFP fluorescence of transgenic rice calli was observed with a fluorescence stereomicroscope (MZ FL III; Leica Microsystems, Wetzlar, Germany) under blue light (425/60 nm).
Total RNA was extracted using the guanidinium method (Chomczynski and Sacchi, 1987
siRNA detection was performed as described previously (Miki and Shimamoto, 2004
For real-time RT-PCR analysis, the SYBR Green PCR Master Mix (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA) and ABI PRISM 7700 sequence detector (Applied Biosystems) were used according to the manufacturer's instructions. The PCR conditions were 95°C for 10 min followed by 40 cycles of 95°C for 15 s and 60°C for 1 min. For every experiment, 1 µL of first-strand cDNA solution was used for PCR amplification with primers specific for each gene (Supplemental Table I).
We thank Junko Kyozuka of the University of Tokyo for pGUS27 and p2K-1+, and members of the Plant Molecular Genetics Lab in Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) for their suggestions and participation in discussions. Received April 7, 2005; returned for revision May 22, 2005; accepted May 23, 2005.
1 This work was supported by the Research for the Future Program of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (grant no. JSPS–RFTF 00L01604) and by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries of Japan (Rice Genome Project). 
[w] The online version of this article contains Web-only data. www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/doi/10.1104/pp.105.063933. * Corresponding author; e-mail simamoto{at}bs.naist.jp; fax 81–743–72–5509.
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ABSTRACT
RESULTS
-glucuronidase (gus) transgenes are targets of RNA silencing (Braunstein et al., 2002
