High Nighttime Temperature (HNT)-Responsive MicroRNA profiles in Developing Caryopses and Flag Leaves of Rice Varieties with Varying Chalkiness

High nighttime temperatures (HNT) impair the quality of rice grain by inducing the chalky phenotype, having more severe effects on some varieties of rice than others. Since small RNAs affecting the severity of the chalky phenotype under HNT have not been investigated in-depth, we aim to sequence small RNAs from the caryopses and flag leaves of rice varieties with varying chalk levels under HNT. Small RNA-seq libraries under control and high nighttime temperatures were generated from the R6-stage caryopses and flag leaves from a variety of cultivars with varying levels of HNT-induced chalkiness. We also perform degradome sequencing of the caryopsis and flag leaf tissues to reveal novel miRNA-mRNA target pairs potentially affecting the HNT-induced chalkiness of rice grains.