Abstract:

In order to study the differential expression of microRNAs (miRNAs) in Populus treated with cold stress for different time and identify cold stress related miRNAs, in this study, Populus tomentosa plantlets were treated for different time (0, 2, 8, 14, 20 h) under cold stress (4℃). Small-sized RNAs (<200 nt) were extracted as template, real-time PCR was used to detect the differential expression of 12 miRNAs under cold stress. The results showed that significant changes of miRNAs were found under different cold stress and the dynamic expression was detected. The expression of most 12 miRNAs was suppressed under cold stress. The expression of miR168a, miR169ac, miR394a-3p, miR530a was down-regulated significantly at all the stress time. The study showed that miRNAs played critical roles in cold stress.