Computational identification and characterization of conserved miRNAs and their putative target genes in Eclipta prostrata

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are an abundant class of newly identified endogenous small non-coding RNAs of ~22 nucleotides long molecules. They play a vital role in many biological and physiological processes of both plants and animals. The conserved nature of miRNAs provides functional role in mostly post-transcriptional regulation, gene expression and silencing the target genes. The theory based on approach of finding homologous sequences of known miRNAs both within a single genome and across genomes of related organisms. In this study, an attempt was made to identify potential miRNAs in Eclipta prostrata GSSs sequence through computational means. A total of 84 GSS sequences of E.prostrata were assembled and resulted in 7 contigs and 28 singletons, homology searched against the non-redundant 4802 known mature miRNAs of Viridiplantae plant kingdom resulted in identification of 8 potential miRNA candidates belonging to 7 different miRNA families. A majority of conserved miRNAs have been characterized by computational approaches using psTargetServer resulted in 5 potential target genes. The result concluded by obtaining eight potential miRNAs of E.prostrata that is evolved functional annotation and evolutionary relationship with other species.