Genome-wide analysis of small RNAs reveals eight fiber elongation-related and 257 novel microRNAs in elongating cotton fiber cells

BMC Genomics

Research Article

Zhengming Wang¹  Wei Xue¹  Yidi Liu¹  Mingjian Du¹  Jin-Yuan Liu¹ 

[1] Laboratory of Molecular Biology, MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinformatics, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, 100084, Beijing, China;

关键词: Cotton;    Comparative miRNAome analysis;    Fiber cell elongation;    High-throughput sequencing;    miRNAs;    tasiRNA;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2164-14-629

 received in 2013-02-05, accepted in 2013-07-06,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundMicroRNAs (miRNAs) and other types of small regulatory RNAs play critical roles in the regulation of gene expression at the post-transcriptional level in plants. Cotton is one of the most economically important crops, but little is known about the roles of miRNAs during cotton fiber elongation.ResultsHere, we combined high-throughput sequencing with computational analysis to identify small RNAs (sRNAs) related to cotton fiber elongation in Gossypium hirsutum L. (G. hirsutum). The sequence analysis confirmed the expression of 79 known miRNA families in elongating fiber cells and identified 257 novel miRNAs, primarily derived from corresponding specific loci in the Gossypium raimondii Ulbr. (G. raimondii) genome. Furthermore, a comparison of the miRNAomes revealed that 46 miRNA families were differentially expressed throughout the elongation period. Importantly, the predicted and experimentally validated targets of eight miRNAs were associated with fiber elongation, with obvious functional relationships with calcium and auxin signal transduction, fatty acid metabolism, anthocyanin synthesis and the xylem tissue differentiation. Moreover, one tasiRNA was also identified, and its target, ARF4, was experimentally validated in vivo.ConclusionThis study not only facilitated the discovery of 257 novel low-abundance miRNAs in elongating cotton fiber cells but also revealed a potential regulatory network of nine sRNAs important for fiber elongation. The identification and characterization of miRNAs in elongating cotton fiber cells might promote the further study of fiber miRNA regulation mechanisms and provide insight into the importance of miRNAs in cotton.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Xue et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.