Grafting is an ancient method that has been intensively used for the clonal propagation of vegetables and woody trees. Despite its importance in agriculture the physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying phenotypic changes of plants following grafting are still poorly understood. In the present study, we analyse the populations of small RNAs in homo and heterografts and take advantage of the sequence differences in the genomes of heterograft partners to analyse the possible exchange of small RNAs. We demonstrate that the type of grafting per se dramatically influences the small RNA populations independently of genotypes but also show genotype specific effects. In addition, we demonstrate that bilateral exchanges of small RNAs, mainly short interfering RNAs, may occur in heterograft with the preferential transfer of small RNAs from the scion to the rootstock. Altogether, the results suggest that small RNAs may have an important role in the phenotype modifications observed in heterografts.

中文翻译：

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小 RNA 种群反映了葡萄藤中异种移植伙伴之间建立的复杂对话。

嫁接是一种古老的方法，已被广泛用于蔬菜和木本树木的无性繁殖。尽管它在农业中很重要，但嫁接后植物表型变化的生理和分子机制仍然知之甚少。在本研究中，我们分析了同源和异种移植物中小 RNA 的种群，并利用异种移植伙伴基因组中的序列差异来分析小 RNA 的可能交换。我们证明嫁接类型本身显着影响小 RNA 种群，独立于基因型，但也显示出基因型特异性效应。此外，我们证明了小 RNA（主要是短干扰 RNA）的双边交换，可能发生在异种移植物中，小RNA优先从接穗转移到砧木。总之，这些结果表明，小 RNA 可能在异种移植物中观察到的表型修饰中起重要作用。