ABSTRACT: To identify blast pathogen elicited miRNAs, four sRNA libraries were constructed: 8749036, A library, susceptible rice cultivar Zhonger-Ruanzhan; 12157795, B library, mock-treated blast resistant line H4; 9937360, C library, blast-treated susceptible rice cultivar Zhonger-Ruanzhan; and 11138187 clean reads, D library, blast-treated blast resistant line H4. The Short Oligonucleotide Analysis Package (SOAP; Beijing Genomics Institute) matched 85.46% (A, 7476714), 79.35% (B, 9647324), 77.70% (C, 7721715) and 76.10% (D, 8476386) sRNA reads to the genome. After removing other RNA categories matched to NCBI Genbank, Rfam database, known rice miRNA precursor, repeat associated RNA and siRNA, the remaining reads: 1681359(A); 3829741(B); 3182403(C); and 3970132(D), were used for further novel miRNA prediction. Since some miRNAs were tissue-specific, time-specific or stress-induced, only 291, 210, 164 and 220 registered miRNAs were identified in libraries A, B, C and D respectively. Thirty-one (A, 9385 reads), 399(B, 41024 read), 351(C, 36622 reads) and 333(D, 38064 reads) unique sRNAs were projected to be candidate miRNAs. Examination of mock-treated rice cultivar, mock-treated blast resistant rice line H4, blast-treated susceptible rice cultivar, and blast-treated blast resistant rice line H4.
