Abstract
A new catalog of microRNA (miRNA) species called mirtrons has been discovered in animals recently, which originate from spliced introns of the gene transcripts. However, only one putative mirtron, osa-MIR1429, has been identified in rice (Oryza sativa). We employed a high-throughput sequencing (HTS) data- and structure-based approach to do a genome-wide search for the mirtron candidate in both Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) and rice. Five and eighteen candidates were discovered in the two plants respectively. To investigate their biological roles, the targets of these mirtrons were predicted and validated based on degradome sequencing data. The result indicates that the mirtrons could guide target cleavages to exert their regulatory roles post-transcriptionally, which needs further experimental validation.
Highlights
MicroRNAs, the well-known small RNA species of,21-nucleotide in length, play essential regulatory roles in gene expression in a vast range of organisms [1,2,3]
Genome-wide Identification of Mirtron Candidates The two model plants, Arabidopsis and rice, with well-annotated genomes were selected for this study
Considering the fact that the sequences of the currently registered plant miRNA precursors [according to miRBase (Release 17) [16]] are generally less than 300 nt in length (Figure S1), the introns with this length range were selected for secondary structure prediction by using RNAshapes [17]
Summary
MicroRNAs, the well-known small RNA (sRNA) species of ,21-nucleotide (nt) in length, play essential regulatory roles in gene expression in a vast range of organisms [1,2,3]. Taking advantage of sRNA HTS data and secondary structure prediction, five and eighteen mirtron candidates were discovered in the two plants, respectively. Genome-wide Identification of Mirtron Candidates The two model plants, Arabidopsis and rice, with well-annotated genomes were selected for this study.
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