Introns targeted by plant microRNAs: a possible novel mechanism of gene regulation.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In plant cells, most microRNAs (miRNAs) perform cleavages of target mature mRNAs in the cytoplasm. A recent report of a miRNA pathway involved in DNA methylation in the rice nucleus raises the possibility that plant miRNAs could cleave intron-containing pre-mRNAs (the precursor of messenger RNAs) located in the nucleus.

Results

In this study, we searched for the miRNA binding sites present within the introns of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) and rice (Oryza sativa) genes. All miRNA-intron interactions predicted to result in cleavages were validated by using the public degradome sequencing data. As a result, 40 miRNA-intron pairs involving 25 miRNAs in Arabidopsis and 1912 pairs involving 91 miRNAs in rice were identified. For several rice genes, not all transc

SUBMITTER: Meng Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4883735 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature