A survey of miRNAs involved in biomineralization and shell repair in the freshwater gastropod Lymnaea stagnalis

Abstract MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a deeply conserved class of small, single stranded RNA molecules that post-transcriptionally regulate mRNA levels via several targeted degradation pathways. They involved in wide variety biological processes and have been used to infer the deep evolutionary relationships major groups such as Metazoa. Here we surveyed adult tissues freshwater pulmonate Lymnaea stagnalis (the Great Pond Snail) for miRNAs. In addition perform shell regeneration assay identify miRNAs may be regulating mRNAs directly shell-forming process. From seven mature total 370 unique precursor give rise 336 While majority these appear evolutionarily novel, most 70 highly expressed (which account 99.8% all reads) share sequence similarity with miRBase or mirGeneDB2.0 entry. We also 10 differentially regulated mantle tissue is actively regenerating material, 5 which novel none any miRNA previously reported biomineralization molluscs. One significantly down-regulated predicted target Lst-Dermatopontin , characterized matrix protein from another gastropod. This survey provides foundation future studies would seek characterize functional role other interest.