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20201
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Subject: Agricultural Biotechnology × Author: Debsarma, Oindrila × Start date: 2019 × Thesis Type: M.Sc ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    VALIDATION OF DROUGHT RESPONSIVE miRNA IN A DROUGHT TOLERANT RICE CULTIVAR
    (AAU, Jorhat, 2020-10) Debsarma, Oindrila; Sen, Priyabrata
    Drought like situation in non-irrigated agriculture system often limits rice production, necessitating introduction of drought tolerance trait into the cultivar of interest. In Assam, effect of dry spells on varieties cultivated on low lands was reported to be reduced up to 43.07%. miRNAs, a class of abundant small noncoding RNAs, have been identified as important regulators of gene expression in both plants and animals and are involved in many aspects of plant development, including the modulation of plant response to stress. Despite technical hurdles to miRNA functional analysis, there is a growing body of evidence that alteration of miRNA accumulation plays an important role in reprogramming plant responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. Assam having a diverse germplasm of rice, might have evolved an unique response to various stress. ARC-10372, a proven drought tolerant landrace may be a good source of drought related miRNAs and can provide insight into the role of miRNA in drought stress. In a previous effort in the Dept. to identify novel variety specific miRNA, small RNA sequencing had been employed to systematically investigate the tissue specific miRNAs responsible to drought stress, which are understudied in rice. The study revealed few novel miRNA in addition to known under drought stress. Differentially expressed miRNA as revealed by sequencing data are confirmed experimentally under drought situation using qRT-PCR. Out of 31 miRNAs, 7 known and 5 novel miRNAs were found to respond to drought stress. The identified target for these miRNAs revealed several conserved miRNAs targeting transcription factors like homeodomain-leucine zipper, MADS box family protein, zinc finger protein and Myb, well known for their importance in drought tolerance in plants. Drastic decrease in abundance of a few of the members of the novel miRNA ( nmiR4, nmiR25, nmiR32, nmiR84 & nmiR86) might suggests important role of these miRNAs in drought tolerance. Further work on revealing its confirmatory role shall yield more information in this regard.