miRNAsarenon-codingsmallRNAsthatinvolvepersebiologicalprocesses.Untilnow,littleisknownabouttheirrolesinplantdroughtresistance.Physcomitrellapatensishighlytoleranttodrought;however,itisnotclearaboutthebasicbiologyofthetraitsthatcontributeP.patensthisimportantcharacter.Inthiswork,wediscovered16droughtstress-associatedmiRNA(DsAmR)familiesinP.patensthroughcomputationalanalysis.DuetothepossiblediscrepancyofexpressionperiodsandtissuedistributionsbetweenpotentialDsAmRsandtheirtargetinggenes,andtheexistenceoffalsepositiveresultsincomputationalidentification,thepredictionresultsshouldbeexaminedwithfurtherexperimentalvalidation.WealsoconstructedanmiRNAco-regulationnetwork,andidentifiedtwonetworkhubs,miR902a-5pandmiR414,whichmayplayimportantrolesinregulatingdrought-resistancetraits.Wedistributedourresultsthroughanonlinedatabasenamedppt-miRBase,whichcanbeaccessedathttp://bioinfor.cnu.edu.cn/ppt_miRBase/index.php.OurmethodsinfindingDsAmRandmiRNAco-regulationnetworkshowedanewdirectionforidentifyingmiRNAfunctions.
