Identification and profiling of Manduca sexta microRNAs and their possible roles in regulating specific transcripts in fat body, hemocytes, and midgut.

ABSTRACT: Significance of microRNA-mediated posttranscriptional regulation has been appreciated ever since its discovery. In the tobacco hornworm Manduca sexta, 164 conserved and 16 novel microRNAs have been identified experimentally (Zhang et al., 2012, 2014). To extend the list of microRNAs in this lepidopteran model species and further explore their possible regulatory roles, we constructed and sequenced small RNA libraries of M. sexta fat body, hemocytes and midgut, since transcriptomes of these tissues from the 5th instar larvae had been studied quite extensively. Each library represented a mixture of the same tissues from larvae that were naïve or induced by three different pathogens. From a total of 167 million reads obtained, we identified two new variants of conserved miR-281 and miR-305 an

SUBMITTER: Zhang X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4362813 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature