PJB-2018-1642
Convergence and divergence studies of plant precursor microRNAs
Abdul Ghani, Muhammad Din and Muhammad Younas Khan Barozai
Abstract
MicroRNA (miRNA) is a class of small RNAs. It is non-coding, 18-26 nucleotides (nt) in length and play a useful and vital role in post-transcriptional gene regulation by targeting messenger RNAs (mRNAs). The short mature miRNAs generate from long precursor miRNAs (pre-miRNAs). The length of pre-miRNAs is range from 50-500 nt. Many of the mature miRNAs are evolutionarily conserved but the convergence of the pre-miRNAs is not well studied. The aim of this research is to study the convergence and divergence of pre-miRNAs in the significant and major groups of plants. In this research, homology-based comparative genomics approach was employed to study the convergence and divergence studies of pre-miRNAs from 35 species of plants. Among the selected species, two are from bryophyta and pteridophyta, one from each, three from gymnosperm, three from monocot, and twenty seven species were from dicot. The three monocots, containing 969 pre-miRNAs, were subjected to convergence and divergence analyses. Out of 969, 27 pre-miRNAs showed convergence with gymnosperm, 26 with bryophyta and pteridophyta and 157 with dicot. Similarly, out of 104, 20 pre-miRNAs of gymnosperm showed convergence with monocot, eight with bryophyta and pteridophyta, and 26 with dicot. The 27 out of 287 pre-miRNAs of bryophyta and pteridophyta showed convergence with monocot, five with gymnosperm, and 18 with dicot. The 148 out of 2647 pre-miRNAs of dicot showed convergence with monocot, 62 with gymnosperm and 51 with bryophyta and pteridophyta. These findings would help us to better understand the pre-miRNAs convergence and divergence in plants. As pre-miRNA generate the functional mature miRNA, so, findings of pre-miRNAs convergence and divergence will also be useful to design and regulate the miRNAs expression for better crop production, biotic and abiotic stress management at the pre-miRNAs level in plants.
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