In Silico Identificaiton of MiRNAs from expressed sequence tags (ESTs) of Foxtail Millet (Setaria Italica)

Abstract

Setaria italica is one of the oldest cultivated millet crops and requires warm weather and minimal water for rapid maturation during the hot and dry months of the year. It comes second after pearl millet in the global millets production. The identification of miRNAs and their targets in a large number of plant species is an important step to understand the function and evolution of miRNAs and miRNA-dependent gene regulation. The objective of the present study was the utilisation of ESTs of Setaria italica for identification of its potential miRNA. MicroRNAs(miRNAs) are the group of 22 nucleotides long noncoding small endogenous and evolutionary conserved posttranscriptional regulatory RNAs, which show an enormous role in various biological and ~etabolic processes in both animals and plants. To date not a single miRNA has been identified by EST approach in Setaria italica which is an economically important plant of Poaceae family. In this study a well developed, powerful and comparative computational approach, EST -based homology search is applied to signify putative miRNAs in Setaria italica homologous to mir-156 miRNA of Oryza sativa. We blasted publicly available processed EST sequences obtained from NCBI Gen-Bank against previously known Oryza sativa miR~As. 15 potential precursor miRNA were identified. Secondary structures were obtained for these potential precursor miRNAs. Overall, findings from t.his study will accelerate the way for further researches of miRNAs and their functions in Setaria italica.