A Literature-curated Database For MiRNA Molecular Regulation In Plant Response To Abiotic Stress And Application In Tea Plant(Camellia Sinensis)

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of endogenous, single-stranded, small(~21-23nt), non-coding RNAs that play critical regulatory roles in plants growth anddevelopment, the transducer of signaling, as well as responses to differentenvironmental stresses. Over200published studies of more than30plant specieshave reported a role for miRNAs in regulating responses to abiotic stresses. However,data from these individual reports has not been collected into a single database. Thelack of a curated database of stress-related miRNAs limits research in this field, andthus a cohesive database system should necessarily be constructed for data depositand further application. Tea (Camellia sinensis) is an important economic crops in theworld，and as a famous baverage，which has many sanitarian functions.To date,limited researches have been done on the regulatory relationships between conservedmiRNA and abiotic stresses in tea, and the research of miRNA target in tea has notbeen reported up to now.Therefore, this study will use the database to predictregulatory relationships between conserved miRNA and abiotic stresses in tea(Camellia sinensis).In order to discover with miRNA target in tea,A DegradomeSequencing library was constructed and sequenced by GAIIx technology.The main results are as follows:(1) PASmiR, a literature-curated and web-accessible database, was developed toprovide detailed, searchable descriptions of miRNA molecular regulation in differentplant abiotic stresses. PASmiR currently includes data from~200published studies,representing1038regulatory relationships between682miRNAs and35abioticstresses in33plant species. PASmiR’s interface allows users to retrieve miRNA-stressregulatory entries by keyword search using plant species, abiotic stress, and miRNAidentifier. Each entry upon keyword query contains detailed regulation informationfor a specific miRNA, including species name, the miRNA identifier, stress name,miRNA expression pattern, detection method for miRNA expression, a referenceliterature, and target gene(s) of the miRNA extracted from the correspondingreference or miRBase. The PASmiR database is freely accessible from the two URLsof http://hi.ustc.edu.cn:8080/PASmiR, and http://pasmir.ahau.edu.cn:8080/PASmiR.(2) By used the PASmiR，to predict regulatory relationships between conservedmiRNA and abiotic stresses in tea.We predict31conserved miRNAs family willresponse to abiotic stresses in tea，and25miRNAs family molecular regulation in lowtemperature stresses,26miRNAs family molecular regulation in drought stress. (3) Using high throughput degradome sequencing in in tea (Camellia sinensis)，203transcripts targeted by a total of miRNAs family were identified in tea. Of189targets for low temperature stress,194targets for drought stress, transcriptionfactors comprise around50%.(4) To further confirm the degradome data, we verified the4miRNA targets andcleavage position by5’RACE experiments. These results indicate that degradomesequencing serves as an efficient strategy to identified small RNAtargets in plants.