Deciphering the role of miRNA in natural population of Arabidopsis thaliana along altitudinal gradient

This study focused on the natural populations of Arabidopsis thaliana that were located along an altitudinal gradient ranging from 700 meters above mean sea level to 3500 meters above mean sea level. These populations originate from west Himalayas and are new for the Arabidopsis community. The experimental design included sampling these plant populations from their natural habitat as well as after growing them under uniform controlled environmental condition. This sort of design probably helped us to identify and differentiate environment specific and genotype specific expression of small RNA. Overall we identified 252 previously identified miRNAs and 29 novel miRNAs expressing differentially in these populations. The analysis of the targets of these differentially expressed miRNAs showed that miRNAs playing role in overall plant development and UV- related stress were highly expressed in high altitude populations as compared to the lower altitude populations. Comparison of field-grown and controlled-grown plant populations indicated that most of the miRNAs were transiently induced by the environmental factor.