Sly-miR166 and Sly-miR319 are components of the cold stress response in Solanum lycopersicum

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small endogenous non-coding RNAs that modulate gene expression in both plants and animals and are involved in several biological processes, ranging from organ differentiation to biotic and abiotic stress responses. We identified two cold stress response microRNAs that showed differential expression in Solanum lycopersicum plants subjected to cold stress. We observed that Sly-miR166 and Sly-miR319 were up-regulated by cold treatments. The up-regulation of Sly-miR166 and Sly-miR319 in cold stress-treated S. lycopersicum seedlings and the down-regulation of their respective targets, HD-Zip III and GAMyb-like that validate by 5′-RACE technique, suggests that these miRNAs play a critical role in regulating S. lycopersicum responses to cold stress.