Plant miRNAs have been shown to be involved in various biotic and abiotic stress responses

Plant miRNAs have been shown to be involved in various biotic (bacterial and viral pathogenesis) and abiotic stress responses such as oxidative, mineral nutrient deficiency, drought, salinity, temperature, cold (chilling), and other abiotic stress. miRNA expression profiling reveals that miRNAs which are involved in the progression of plant growth and development are differentially expressed during abiotic stress responses. The high-throughout techniques can provide genome-wide identification of stress-associated miRNAs under various abiotic stresses in plants.

miRNA microarray can monitor the expression pattern of thousands of genes simultaneously to determine microRNA profiling in stress-induced plant tissues/cells. The differentially expressed miRNAs further could be validated by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) or by northern blot analysis. RNA-Seq technologies have become very powerful tools in the identification and quantification of small RNAs involved in gene regulation in different types of responses in plants and animals and degradome sequencing has revealed many novel plant miRNA targets¹.