Characterization of small interfering RNAs derived from Rice black streaked dwarf virus in infected maize plants by deep sequencing

Rice black streaked dwarf virus (RBSDV) is the casual agent of maize rough dwarf disease, which frequently causes severe yield loss in China. However, the interaction between RBSDV and maize plants is largely unknown. RNA silencing is a conserved mechanism against viruses in plants. To understand the antiviral RNA interfering response in RBSDV-infected plants, the profile of virus-derived small interfering RNAs (vsiRNAs) from RBSDV in infected maize plants was obtained by deep sequencing in this study. Our data showed that vsiRNAs, accumulated preferentially as 21- and 22-nucleotide (nt) species, were mapped against all 10 genomic RNA segments of RBSDV and derived almost equally overall from both positive and negative strands, while there were significant differences in the accumulation level of vsiRNAs from segments 2, 4, 6, 7 and 10. The vsiRNAs (21 and 22 nt) generated from each segment of RBSDV genome had a 5′-terminal nucleotide bias toward adenine and uracil. The single-nucleotide resolution maps showed that RBSDV-derived siRNAs preferentially distributed in the 5′- or 3′-terminal regions of several genomic segments. In addition, our results showed that the mRNA levels of some components involved in antiviral RNA silencing pathway were differentially modified during RBSDV infection. Among them, the accumulation levels of ZmDCL1, ZmDCL2, ZmDCL3a, ZmAGO1a, ZmAGO1b, ZmAGO2a, ZmAGO18a and ZmRDR6 mRNAs were significantly up-regulated, while those of ZmDCL3b, ZmDCL4 and ZmAGO1c mRNAs showed no obvious changes in RBSDV-infected maize plants.