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. 2015 Dec 9;10(12):e0143720.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0143720. eCollection 2015.

MicroRNA Expression Profile during Aphid Feeding in Chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium)

Xiaolong Xia  1 , Yafeng Shao  1 , Jiafu Jiang  1 , Xinping Du  1 , Liping Sheng  1 , Fadi Chen  1 , Weimin Fang  1 , Zhiyong Guan  1 , Sumei Chen  1
Affiliations

MicroRNA Expression Profile during Aphid Feeding in Chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium)

Xiaolong Xia et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are important regulators of gene expression, affecting many biological processes. As yet, their roles in the response of chrysanthemum to aphid feeding have not been explored. Here, the identity and abundance of miRNAs induced by aphid infestation have been obtained using high-throughput Illumina sequencing platform. Three leaf small RNA libraries were generated, one from plants infested with the aphid Macrosiphoniella sanbourni (library A), one from plants with mock puncture treatment (library M), and the third from untreated control plants (library CK). A total of 7,944,797, 7,605,251 and 9,244,002 clean unique reads, ranging from 18 to 30 nucleotides (nt) in length, were obtained from library CK, A and M, respectively. As a result, 303 conserved miRNAs belonging to 276 miRNAs families and 234 potential novel miRNAs were detected in chrysanthemum leaf, out of which 80, 100 and 79 significantly differentially expressed miRNAs were identified in the comparison of CK-VS-A, CK-VS-M and M-VS-A, respectively. Several of the differentially abundant miRNAs (in particular miR159a, miR160a, miR393a) may be associated with the plant's response to aphid infestation.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Size distribution of small RNA sequences in library CK, A and M.
CK: control; A: aphid infestation treatment; M: mock puncture treatment; nt: nucleotide.
Fig 2
Fig 2. The expression profiles of conserved microRNAs (miRNAs).
CK: control; A: aphid infestation treatment; M: mock puncture treatment. A: number of miRNAs detected in library CK, A and M; B: number of differentially expressed miRNAs identified in CK-VS-A, CK-VS-M and M-VS-A comparisons.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Heat map of differential expression and cluster analysis of conserved microRNAs (miRNAs).
MiRNAs who have similar pattern of differential expression in different library comparisons are clustered together. Red: up-regulation; green: down-regulation; gray: miRNA has no expression in at least one library. CK: control; A: aphid infestation treatment; M: mock puncture treatment. CK-VS-A: comparison between library CK and A; CK-VS-M: comparison between library CK and M; M-VS-A: comparison between library M and A.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Target validation of miR160a and miR393a in chrysanthemum.
A: cleavage site in the target of miR160a; B: cleavage site in the target of miR393a. The 5’ end of the cleavage product is indicated by arrow with the frequency of clones. Vertical dash: Watson-Crick pairing; Circle: G:U wobble pairing.
Fig 5
Fig 5. Gene Ontology (GO) functional classification of targets of conserved microRNAs (miRNAs).
Targets were annotated in three categories: biological process (blue), cellular component (red) and molecular function (green). CK: control; A: aphid infestation treatment; M: mock puncture treatment. A: comparison between library CK and A (CK-VS-A); B: comparison between library CK and M (CK-VS-M); C: comparison between library M and A (M-VS-A).
Fig 6
Fig 6. The expression profiles of potential novel microRNAs (miRNAs).
CK: control; A: aphid infestation treatment; M: mock puncture treatment. A: number of miRNAs detected in library CK, A and M; B: number of differentially expressed miRNAs identified in CK-VS-A, CK-VS-M and M-VS-A comparisons.
Fig 7
Fig 7. Validation of the expression of microRNAs (miRNAs) from deep sequencing in leaf tissues of chrysanthemum.
Correlation of fold change was analyzed by deep sequencing (x axis) with data obtained using qRT-PCR (y axis).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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