MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, endogenously expressed, and nonprotein coding RNAs that regulate gene expression via post-transcriptional inhibition and cleavage. To date, several plant miRNAs have been identified via direct cloning, high-throughput sequencing, and bioinformatics analyses. | Turkish Journal of Agriculture and Forestry Turk J Agric For (2013) 37: 1-21 © TÜBİTAK doi: Review Article Plant microRNAs: new players in functional genomics 1,2 1 1 1, Vahap ELDEM , Sezer OKAY , Turgay ÜNVER * Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Çankırı Karatekin University, Ballıca, Çankırı, Turkey 2 Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, İstanbul University, İstanbul, Turkey Received: Accepted: Published Online: Printed: Abstract: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, endogenously expressed, and nonprotein coding RNAs that regulate gene expression via post-transcriptional inhibition and cleavage. To date, several plant miRNAs have been identified via direct cloning, high-throughput sequencing, and bioinformatics analyses. The miRNAs participate in RNA-induced gene silencing complex, and specifically repress the target gene transcripts. Thus, miRNAs regulate the expression of genes playing diverse roles in plants, such as root initiation, leaf morphology, flower development, and response to environmental stimuli. A number of miRNAs have been identified and functionally characterized in eukaryotes. In this review, we discuss the functional roles of miRNAs in plant development as well as stress response to biotic and abiotic environmental factors. Additionally, we present brief information about miRNA detection and discovery techniques. Key words: High-throughput next generation sequencing, plant development, stress response 1. Introduction MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous, small, noncoding RNA molecules playing crucial roles in the regulation of gene expression at the post-transcriptional level in eukaryotes and viruses (Carrington and Ambros 2003; Bartel 2004; Schwab et al. 2005; Unver et al. 2009). These regulatory small RNA molecules achieve their roles through sequence-specific interactions with complementary sites of target mRNA that .
