IDENTIFICATION OF MICRORNAS AND THEIR TARGETS IN ARTEMISIA ANNUA L.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs), a class of regulatory RNAs, are tiny, non-protein coding and about 18 to 26 nucleotides long. They are involved in the posttranscriptional gene regulation. Their conserved nature among various organisms makes them a worthy foundation for the prediction of novel miRNAs by computational comparative genomics approach. This study resulted in 16 miRNAs belonging to 13 families; miR 156, 159, 160, 162, 166, 171, 172, 390, 395, 397, 535, 1310 and 4221 for the first time in Artemisia annua. All 16 miRNA precursors are observed with stable secondary structures and the mature miRNAs found in stem region of the stem loop structures. Their targets consist of transcription factors like; APETALA2, WRKY3, DELLA, MYB and hypothetical proteins.