Degradome Sequencing for Plant microRNA Target Identification

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous small noncoding RNAs that play crucial roles in the post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression in plants and animals. They function by binding to complementary mRNA molecules (targets) and acting as negative regulators of translation. This function is part of a complex web as a single miRNA might have several target genes and a single gene may be regulated by many miRNAs. Identification of these miRNA-target pairs is crucial to understanding the biology of the miRNA regulatory mechanism.

Recently, degradome sequencing, a modified 5'-rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) performed with next-gen sequencing, has emerged as a comprehensive method of analyzing patterns of RNA degradation. This presentation will provide an overview of this emerging method for miRNA target identification, as well as practical information for performing degradome sequencing experiments and data analysis. Diverse case study examples will be provided to illustrate the usefulness of this latest application of next-gen sequencing technology to plant miRNA research.