Discovery and functional characterization of novel miRNAs in the marine medaka Oryzias melastigma

• Using genome and small RNA sequencings to discover novel miRNAs in marine medaka.
• Identified novel miRNAs have tissue-specific roles in brain, liver and gonads of marine medaka.
• Novel miRNA profile provides biomarkers for future transgenerational studies of environmental stresses.

The marine medaka Oryzias melastigma has often been used as a marine fish model to investigate the biological responses to environmental stresses and pollutants in marine environments. miRNAs are post-transcriptional regulators of many biological processes in a variety of organisms, and have been shown to be affected by environmental stresses, but the novel miRNA profile of marine medaka has not been reported. Using both genome and small RNA sequencings coupled with different bioinformatics analyses, we have discovered 58, 82, 234, and 201 unannotated miRNAs in the brain, liver, ovary and testis tissues of marine medaka, respectively. Furthermore, these novel miRNAs were found to target genes with tissue-specific roles such as neuron development and synaptic transmission in the brain, glucose and fat metabolism in the liver and steroidogenesis in the gonads. We here report, for the first time, novel miRNA profile of marine medaka, which will provide a foundation for future biomarkers and transgenerational studies for the assessment of environmental stresses and pollutions in the marine environments. In a boarder context, our data will provide novel insight into our knowledge of miRNome and miR research.