Fig. 4

Differential expression of miRNA-targets in senescent litchi during ambient and post-cold storage and RLM-5′-RACE validation. Relative expression is normalized to actin, and the normalized miRNA expression at day 0 is arbitrarily set to 1. The data are the mean ± standard deviation (n = 3). (a) lch-miR396a targeting cysteine protease gene, which mediates proteolysis. (b) lch-miR393b targeting auxin signaling F-box2, which mediates auxin signal transduction. (c) lch-miR396c targeting transcription factor ERF, which mediates the process of senescence. (d-f) RLM-5′-RACE validation of the CP1, AFB2 and ERF cleavage sites by lch-miR396a, lch-miR393b and lch-miR396c, respectively. The number next to the arrow indicates the number of sequences found at the exact cleavage site