1st International and 10th National Iranian Conference on Bioinformatics
Home Accepted Papers
In Silico Identification of key microRNAs in Cannabis sativa L.
Paper ID : 1311-ICB10
Authors:
Motahhareh Mohammadi *1, صدیقه فابریکی اورنگ2, جعفر احمدی1
1مهندسی ژنتیک و به نژادی گیاهی دانشکده کشاورزی و منابع طبیعی دانشگاه بین المللی امام خمینی قزوین
2مهندسی ژنتیک و به نژادی گیاهی، دانشکده کشاورزی و منابع طبیعی دانشگاه بین المللی امام خمینی قزوین
Abstract:
Cannabis (Cannabis sativa L.) is an annual, herbaceous, and dicotyledonous plant of the Cannabinaceae
family. Cannabis has not been considered as important food, medicinal and industrial source and little
research has been done on its agronomic, physiological, and biochemical properties [1]. MiRNAs are small,
non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression in plants and animals [2]. These small RNAs play an
important role in regulating post-transcriptional gene expression and act as negative regulators of gene
expression in eukaryotes [3]. In recent years, the use of bioinformatics tools to identify miRNAs and their
target genes has been widely considered and used due to the availability of genomic sequences in databases
due to their efficiency and low cost [4]. The main purpose of this study was to identify conserved miRNAs
in the genome of the Cannabis sativa L. through the computational genomics homology search approach.
Therefore, to identify cannabis microRNAs, a homology-based search was performed between Cannabis
sativa L. genome data in the NCBI database and known microRNAs in the miRBase database, using
BLASTn, then to better identify the secondary structure, With the help of the BEDFile tool, 200 nucleotides
were added to the beginning and end of each candidate target miRNA and in the next step, BLASTx was
performed to remove the coding sequences of the proteins. The secondary structures of candidate
microRNAs were predicted using MFOLD software. Finally, eight miRNAs were identified, which
belonged to six different families. Csa-miR169e 5p and csa-miR169k belonged to the miR169 family and
csa-miR319b along with csa-miR319a3p belonged to the miR159 family. Other identified microRNAs
include csa-miR8014 5p, csa-miR8005c, csa-miR2111b and csa-miR1533. The current results provide
molecular evidence for understanding the possible involvement of miRNAs in the regulation of Growth
and development by miR159 family and Stresses response by miR169 family in this plant species.
Keywords:
Bioinformatic, Cannabis sativa, Comparative genomics, Genome, MicroRNA.
Status : Paper Accepted (Poster Presentation)