Fig 1.
Phenotypic and physiological assessment of DP and IR28 seedlings under control and salt stress conditions.
(A) Phenotypes of DP and IR28 seedlings under two experimental conditions. Bar = 5 cm. Comparison of (B) shoot length (cm), (C) root length (cm), (D) whole seedling dry weight (mg), and (E) total chlorophyll of DP and IR28 seedlings under control and salt stress treatments.
Table 1.
Summary of miRNA libraries of DP and IR28 seedlings under control and salt stress conditions.
Fig 2.
Profiling of miRNAs in the shoot and root tissues of DP and IR28 seedlings under salt stress.
(A) Heat-map represents the Log2 fold change in abundance of miRNAs detected via high throughput sequencing. (B) Number of differentially expressed miRNAs in the shoot and root tissues of DP and IR28 seedlings. (C) Venn diagram representing the distribution of miRNAs in shoot and root tissues of DP and IR28 seedlings under salt stress.
Fig 3.
Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis of differently expressed miRNA targets in DP and IR28 seedlings.
GO analysis revealed that miRNA targets are involved in 29 and 30 processes in DP (A) and IR28 (B) seedlings, respectively. KEGG enrichment analysis revealed the top 10 enriched pathways in DP (C) and IR28 (D) seedlings. The rich factor represents the degree of enrichment. The color code is to indicate different Q value ranges, with the smaller the Q value representing the more significant the enrichment.
Fig 4.
Experimental validation of selected miRNAs and molecular assessment of their targets in DP and IR28 seedlings under control and salt stress.
RT-qPCR quantification of miR164d abundance and its target gene expression, NAC21/22 (A), miR169i abundance and NTFY expression (B), miR172d abundance and AP2/ERF expression (C), miR398a abundance and CSD2 expression (D), miR528 abundance and AO expression (E), and miR529b and SPL14 expression (F). Statistical data was analyzed by a t-test and the statistically significant difference of shoot and root samples between two experimental conditions in each cultivar was presented by an asterisk (p < 0.05).