Identification of candidate microRNAs involved in cold tolerance of Chickpea

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is one of the most important legumes, classified as a cold-sensitive species, and each year, the sudden drop in temperature leads to a significant loss of chickpea yield. miRNAs are highly conserved small noncoding RNAs that regulate expression of their target genes by degradation of their mRNAs or suppressing their translation, and their roles have been proved in cold stress response in various plants. In the current study, in order to identify cold stress responsive miRNAs in chickpeas, following transcriptome sequencing of a cold stress tolerant cultivar (Saral) and a cold stress sensitive line (ILC533) in response to cold stress, the sequences of the cold responsive genes were analyzed by c-mii software to identify possible miRNAs. Then, the target genes of a number of important miRNAs were identified using psRNA target software. The results showed that 30 and 20 miRNAs responded to cold stress in the tolerant and sensitive genotypes, respectively. Through comparative analysis of cold responsive miRNAs in the contrasting genotypes, miR319, miR393, miR394 and miR159 were demonstrated as candidate miRNAs involved in cold tolerance and their roles was further inspected. It is hoped that the obtained results will be useful for development of cold tolerant chickpea cultivars.