Exploring MicroRNAs in S. frugiperda Larvae Infected with SfMNPV through miRNA-seq

GÓMEZ BERGNA, SANTIAGO M.; TONGIANI, SILVANA E.; RICARDO SALVADOR; VÍCTOR ROMANOWSKI; PIDRE MATÍAS LUIS; FERRELLI MARÍA LETICIA

Rosario

Congreso; XIII Argentine Congress of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (XIII CAB2C); 2023

Background: Spodoptera frugiperda Multiple Nucleopolyhedrovirus (SfMNPV) is a baculovirus that infectsthe larval stage of the moth Spodoptera frugiperda, commonly known as the fall armyworm. S. frugiperdais a very important agronomic pest of maize and other crops and SfMNPV a good candidate asbioinsecticide.MicroRNAs are small non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression in a sequence specific manner andare certainly involved in the host-pathogen interaction. In order to better understand the cross-talkregulation between the SfMNPV and its host, we set out to identify novel miRNAS expressed by SfMNPVand S. frugiperda larvae in the context of infection by means of small RNA-seq analysis.Results: Larvae of S. frugiperda were infected with the Argentinean SfMNPV M isolate and total RNA wasextracted 48 hours post-infection. High-quality RNA samples, along with RNA from uninfected controllarvae, served as inputs for small RNA sequencing using Illumina technology, performed by NovogenInc®. The resulting data was subjected to quality control and further trimming to eliminate adaptersequences, low quality reads, and short reads. Subsequently, the reads were collapsed and mapped tothe reference genomes, resulting in 0.39% of the reads mapped to SfMNPV genome and 54.71% mappedto the S. frugiperda genome. This data was then processed using miRDeep2 to identify existing andputative novel microRNAs encoded by the host and the virus. As a result, we could identify S. frugiperdamiRNAs already deposited in miRBase or reported by other authors, but also detected several putativenovel miRNAs expressed by this insect. These miRNAs shared seed sequences with miRNAs from otherspecies. Finally, we could also identify putative miRNAs coded by SfMNPV.Conclusions: We successfully identified the majority of previously reported microRNAs and uncoveredseveral putative novel microRNAs in S. frugiperda. Additionally, we detected novel putative miRNAs inSfMNPV. These findings significantly contribute to our understanding of the response of S. frugiperda toSfMNPV infection.