In silico analysis of chili encoded miRNAs targeting Chili leaf curl begomovirus and its associated satellite

Chilli leaf curl virus (ChiLCV), a member of Geminiviridae family (Genus: Begomovirus), is one of the most destructive plant virus. Micro (mi) RNAs, are the endogenous non-coding small RNAs that play significant roles in plant growth and stress resistance by degrading targeted mRNA or repressing mRNA translation. Computational methods have identified numerous miRNAs in many plant species, whereas there is no report of chilli miRNAs targeting essential genes of ChiLCV genome and associated satellites. In this study, we have predicted chilli encoded miRNAs that could be used for silencing against chilli leaf curl virus (Accession no. MF737343) infection. We predicted several potential mir miRNAs, exhibited high complementarities with V1 (CP) and C1 (Rep) genes of ChiLCV. Other overlapping genes V2, C2 and C3 were also targeted by mir-miRNAs.