Indian Himalayan natural Arabidopsis thaliana accessions with abolished miR158 levels exhibit robust miR173-initiated trans-acting cascade silencing. miR158 locus and associated small RNAs

The natural variants of MIR158 having deletions or insertions led to improper processing of miR158 precursors thereby blocking synthesis of mature miR158. Reduced miR158 led to increased level of its target, a pseudo-pentatricopeptide gene that is otherwise targeted by ta-siRNAs generated by miR173 cascade in other accessions.