Flexible microRNA arm selection in rice

MicroRNAs act at the post-transcriptional level and guide Argonaute proteins to cleave their corresponding target transcripts. However, little attention has been paid to arm selection in miRNA precursors. In this study, small RNA high-throughput sequencing data from 29 different rice libraries were pooled to investigate tissue- and abiotic stress-specific dynamic expression of miRNAs. We found that more than half of pre-miRNAs showed changes in arm selection in different tissues and/or under different abiotic stresses. Our findings suggest that miRNA selection is remarkably prevalent in plants, providing new insights into the role of miRNAs in plant growth and development.