282

Biology and Biotechnology of Environmental Stress Tolerance in Plants, Volume 3

TABLE 9.4 Useful Tools for siRNA in Plants

Programs

Links

References

ASRP

http://asrp.cgrb.oregonstate.edu/

Gustason et al. (2005)

sIR

http://biotools.swmed.edu/siRNA

Shah et al. (2007)

Specificity­

http://informatics-eskitis.griffith.edu.au/

Chalk & Sonnhammer

Server

SpecificityServer

(2008)

AsiDesigner

http://sysbio.kribb.re.kr/AsiDesigner/

Park et al. (2008)

siDirect 2.0

http://siDirect2.RNAi.jp

Naito et al. (2009)

DEQOR

http://bioinformatics.age.mpg.de/bioinformat-

Henschel et al. (2004)

ics/DEQOR.html

DSIR

http://biodev.cea.fr/DSIR/DSIR.html

Vert et al. (2006)

NEXT-RNAi

http://b110-wiki.dkfz.de/signaling/wiki/display/ Horn et al. (2010)

nextrnai/NEXT-RNAi

Oligo Walk

http://rna.urmc.rochester.edu/cgi-bin/serverexe/

Lu & Mathews (2008)

oligowalk/oligowalk form.cgi

OptiRNA

http://optirna.unl.edu/

Ladunga (2007)

OptiRNAi 2.0

http://rnai.nci.nih.gov/

Cui et al. (2004)

MPSS

http://mpss.udel.edu

Nakano et al. (2006)

Sfold2.2(Srna)

http://sfold.wadsworth.org/cgi-bin/sirna.pl

Ding et al. (2004)

siDRM

http://siRecords.umn.edu/siDRM/

Gong et al. (2008)

siRNA selector http://sirna.wi.mit.edu/

Yuan et al. (2004)

The profile of DNA methylation and small RNA profiling will reveal

genes or regions that are influenced by miRNA/siRNA-mediated DNA

methylation and such profiling could help to explain how stress effects are

epigenetically passed down through the generations (Khraiwesh et al., 2012).

9.8 APPLICATION AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF SMALL RNA-BASED

STRATEGIES FOR THE BETTERMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND

PLANT SCIENCE

Manipulation of small RNA-guided gene regulation in stress-sensitive plants

to increase stress tolerance is a unique and viable approach. Improving salt

tolerance in plants necessitates a thorough knowledge of gene transcrip­

tional and post-transcriptional regulation by sRNAs under salt-induced

stress conditions. Small RNA based gene silencing or RNAi technology has

effectively been employed in the identification and functional assessment of

several genes within a genome (Younis et al., 2014). RNAi is used by several

groups of plants, including crop plants to reduce the expression of exog­

enous or endogenous mRNA by RISCs (Fire et al., 1998). RISCs regulate