Comparative Sequencing of Plant Small RNAs

该项目的目标是开发广泛的植物小RNA(21到24个核苷酸)的序列资源，并从整个植物界的代表物种中靶向mRNAs。这些数据将使对微小RNA(MiRNA)和短干扰RNA(SiRNAs)的功能和进化研究成为可能。小RNA在植物发育、逆境反应和表观遗传调控中发挥着重要的作用，主要是通过它们在转录和转录后沉默特定的靶基因和其他基因座来实现的。虽然大多数研究仅限于拟南芥，但对小RNA的多样性和进化知之甚少，这表明miRNAs是一个保守的基因调控系统，可以追溯到低等植物和绿藻。这个项目将开发一个植物小RNA和靶RNA的序列数据集，基于这样的假设，即大多数植物(如果不是所有植物)都利用重要的小RNA信号网络。不同的植物家族可能同时具有共同的和谱系特有的miRNAs或其他具有重要生物学作用的小RNAs。比较基因组学方法可以用于区分潜在的miRNAs和siRNAs，并将miRNAs与靶序列进行匹配；靶序列将增加小RNA序列数据的价值。该项目将开发一个无与伦比的数百万植物小RNA资源，用于比较分析。该项目包括对各种与农学相关的植物物种的小RNA进行测序，重点分析茄科和禾本科的重要成员，对几个物种的miRNA目标文库进行测序，以及开发一个小的RNA数据库和网络界面，供公众查阅和分析数据。这些数据将允许对一系列植物物种的大多数具有重要生物学意义的小RNA进行实验表征，并将对对发育、胁迫反应、表观遗传学、进化、RNA生物学和其他受小RNA影响的特征感兴趣的广泛的植物生物学家非常有用。获取项目成果序列数据将存放在GenBank中(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/)，可在http://mpss.udel.edu/at.上浏览关于小核糖核酸生物学和利用该项目产生的资源的教程将使专家以及那些几乎不接触该领域的人能够获得数据。

The goal of this project is to develop extensive sequence resources of plant small RNAs (21 to 24 nucleotides) and target mRNAs from representative species across the plant kingdom. These data will enable functional and evolutionary studies of microRNAs (miRNA) and short-interfering RNAs (siRNAs). Small RNAs have a demonstrated and important role in plant development, stress responses, and epigenetic regulation primarily through their role in transcriptional and post-transcriptional silencing of specific target genes and other loci. While most studies have been limited to Arabidopsis, the little that is known about small RNA diversity and evolution suggests that miRNAs are a well-conserved gene regulatory system dating back to lower plants and green algae. This project will develop a sequence dataset of plant small RNAs and target RNAs, based on the hypothesis that most if not all plants utilize important small RNA signaling networks. Different plant families are likely to have both common and lineage-specific miRNAs or other small RNAs with important biological roles. Comparative genomics approaches can be applied to distinguish potential miRNAs from siRNAs and to match the miRNAs to the target sequences; the target sequences will add value to the small RNA sequence data. This project will develop an unparalleled resource of millions of plant small RNAs for comparative analyses. The project includes sequencing of small RNAs from a diverse and agronomically-relevant set of plant species, focused analyses of important members of the Solanaceae and Poaceae, sequencing of miRNA target libraries from several species, and development of a small RNA database and web interface for public access and analysis of data. These data will allow the experimental characterization of the majority of biologically important small RNAs for a range of plant species, and will be tremendously useful to a broad set of plant biologists interested in development, stress responses, epigenetics, evolution, RNA biology and other traits impacted by small RNAs. Access to project outcomesSequence data will be deposited in GenBank (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) and browsable at http://mpss.udel.edu/at. A tutorial on small RNA biology and utilization of the resources generated by this project will make the data accessible to experts as well as those with little exposure to the field.