MicroRNAs as biomarkers in Tomato Leaf Curl Virus (ToLCV) disease

MicroRNAs are approximately 21- 25 nt long RNA species that are critical regulators of transcriptome across the eukaryotes. Growing number of evidences clearly supports their involvement in plant leaf development. ToLCV infection severely affects the morphology of mature tomato leaves. To investigate the mechanism underlying the virus- host interaction, we focussed our studies on expression of microRNAs and the irrespective targets under normal and ToLCV infection. We have cloned Myb33, ARF4 homolog, Argonaute1, Apetala2, SBP transcription factor and RBOH from tomato and checked their expression by RT-PCR. Our work suggests that miR159 is upregulated while miR164 and miR171 are downregulated under viral infection. Our studies shed light on the impact of ToLCV infection on host transcriptome.