In Silico Prediction and Characterization of MicroRNAs from Aphis gossypii (Hemiptera: Aphididae)

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs that regulate gene expression either bymRNAcleavage or by translational repression. They play an important role in the development and physiology of organisms. It is difficult to experimentally identify miRNAs and characterize their spatial and temporal ex...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annals of the Entomological Society of America 2014-03, Vol.107 (2), p.521-531
Main Authors: Rebijith, K. B, Asokan, R, Krishna, V, Hande, Ranjitha H, Kumar, N. K. Krishna, Ramamurthy, V. V
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
animals
Aphididae
Aphis gossypii
cotton
expressed sequence tag
expressed sequence tags
gene expression
GENETICS
Hemiptera
insect control
insects
microRNA
miRNA
non-coding RNA
pests
phylogeny
physiology
plant viruses
prediction
signal transduction
translation (genetics)
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs that regulate gene expression either bymRNAcleavage or by translational repression. They play an important role in the development and physiology of organisms. It is difficult to experimentally identify miRNAs and characterize their spatial and temporal expressions in insects or in any organisms. The cotton or melon aphid, Aphis gossypii Glover, is an important pest. It is a major vector of many plant viruses that often cause crop failures. Developing futuristic management approaches exploiting small RNAs like miRNAs may provide options for effective management of this pest species. To achieve this goal, identification and characterization of miRNAs from A. gossypii is a prerequisite. In this study, we used computational approaches, primarily depending on similarity search and secondary structure prediction, to identify 16 potential miRNAs from 88,851 A. gossypii expressed sequence tag sequences. Phylogenetic analyses showed A. gossypii mature miRNAs are highly conserved with respect to other members in the animal kingdom. Functional annotation of the newly predicted miRNAs revealed that the majority of them are involved in the regulation of transcription and signal transduction. With further experimental verification, miRNAs predicted in this study may provide valuable tools for insect pest management in the future.
ISSN:0013-8746
1938-2901
DOI:10.1603/AN12158