EFFECT OF ER STRESS ON VARIOUS MIRNA EXPRESSIONS IN TOMATO

Abstract

Stress conditions which affect protein folding cause Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) stress. Thiswill be transferred to the nucleus by Unfolded Protein Response (UPR), which is a cellularhomeostatic response against ER stress. Diversity of ER-stress associated genes, which wereelucidated by genome sequencing studies of various plants, proved that plants use ER stressresponses to better adapt to their environment more than animals. Tunicamycin, as an N-linkedglycosylation inhibitor, is a widely known and used chemical to induce ER stress. In this study,tunicamycin was used to induce ER stress in tomato plants. Total RNA was isolated from plantleaves to perform miRNA expression analysis in stress-induced plants. The miRNAs selectedfor this study were studied in various plants under various stress conditions, and they wereproven to show changing expression rates. It is important to reveal the relationship between ERstress and expression profiles of these miRNAs, which were studied under different stressconditions, by evaluating the data obtained in this study. Expression changes of these miRNAs,which are known to be associated with stress responses and are observed to change under manystress conditions in tomato, were investigated by qRT-PCR method under ER stress. It isanticipated that the obtained data will contribute to the elucidation of key miRNAs involved inER stress response mechanisms.