Plant microRNAs (miRNA) act as important regulators of gene expression and carry potential uses on plant genetic engineering. Eucalypt species are of great interest for research due to their importance in timber and cellulose production and sustainable energy sources. Lignin is an important plant biopolymer that hampers the processing of wood into cellulose and biofuels. The understanding of lignin biosynthesis and deposition is of great interest for the industry and the use of interfering RNAs (iRNA) may be an important tool to produce plants with modified lignin content. The study of lignin deposition is greatly aided by the use of reaction wood models, in which the tension created by wood bending in woody plants results in differential lignin deposition, with the outer face of the curved stem forming tension wood (TW) and the inner face of the curve stem forms opposite wood (OW). Therefore, we sequenced six independent small RNA libraries from stems of Eucalyptus grandis and Eucalyptus globulus in three experimental conditions (TW, OW and unbent control - CT), in order to identify miRNAs and analyze their expression profile in two species of Eucalyptus under the stimulus of lignification.
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