Identification and differential regulation of microRNAs in response to methyl jasmonate treatment in Lycoris aurea by deep sequencing

BACKGROUND: Lycoris aurea is a medicine-valuable and ornamental herb widely distributed in China. Former studied have showed that methyl jasmonate (MJ) treatment could increase the content of glanthamine-a worldwide medicine for symptomatic treatment of Alzheimer’s disease in genus Lycoris plants. To explore the possible role of miRNAs in the regulation of jasmonic acid signaling pathway and uncover their potential correlations, we investigated the expression profiles of small RNAs (sRNAs) and their targets in Lycoris aurea, with MJ treatment by using next-generation deep sequencing. RESULTS: A total of 365 miRNAs were identified, comprising 342 known miRNAs (representing 60 miRNA families) and 23 novel miRNAs. Among them, 143 known and 11 novel miRNAs were expressed differently under MJ treatment. Quantitative real-time PCR of eight selected miRNAs validated the expression pattern of these loci in response to MJ treatment. In addition, degradome sequencing analysis showed that 32 target genes were validated to be targeted by the 49 miRNAs, respectively. Gene function and pathway analyses showed that these targets such as auxin response factors (ARFs), squamosa promoter-binding like (SPL) proteins, basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) proteins, and ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme E2 are involved in different plant processes, indicating miRNAs mediated regulation might play important roles in L. aurea response to MJ treatment. Furthermore, several L. aurea miRNAs associated with their target genes that might be involved in Amaryllidaceae alkloids biosynthehsis were also analyzed. CONCLUSIONS: A number of miRNAs with diverse expression patterns, and complex relationships between expression of miRNAs and targets were identified. This study represents the first transcriptome-based analysis of miRNAs in Lycoris and will contribute to understanding the potential roles of miRNAs involved in regulation of MJ response. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-016-2645-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.