Abstract

The tea plant (Camellia sinensis L.) is vulnerable to the geometrid Ectropis oblique; although microRNAs (miRNAs) are important for plant growth, development and stress response, the function of miRNAs in the response of C. sinensis to stress from E. oblique is unclear. To identify E. oblique stress-responsive miRNAs and their target genes in tea plant, three small RNA libraries were constructed from leaves subjected to mechanical wounding (MW), geometrid attack (GA) and from healthy control (CK) leaves. Using high-throughput sequencing, 130 known miRNAs and 512 novel miRNAs were identified; of these, differential expression under GA stress was observed for 36 known and 139 novel miRNAs. Furthermore, 169 GA-responsive and 173 MW-responsive miRNAs were detected by miRNA microarray. The expression patterns of six GA-responsive miRNAs were validated by qRT-PCR. Several target genes for these miRNAs encode various transcription factors, including ethylene-responsive transcription factors and squamosa promoter-binding-like proteins, which suggests that these miRNAs may regulate stress-responsive transcriptional processes in tea plant. The present findings provide novel insights into miRNA-mediated regulatory mechanisms underlying the response to GA stress, and also offer valuable information for development of pest resistance using RNA interference-based strategies in tea plants.

Details

Title
Genome-wide identification of microRNAs responsive to Ectropis oblique feeding in tea plant (Camellia sinensis L.)
Author
Jeyaraj, Anburaj 1 ; Liu, Shengrui 1 ; Zhang, Xiao 1 ; Zhang, Ran 1 ; Shangguan, Mingzhu 1 ; Chaoling Wei 1 

 State Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Biology and Utilization, Anhui Agricultural University, 130 Changjiang West Road, Hefei, P.R. China 
Pages
1-16
Publication year
2017
Publication date
Oct 2017
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2122513853
Copyright
© 2017. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.