Endogenous small RNAs, including microRNAs (miRNAs) and small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), play important regulatory roles in
development, hormone signaling, stress responses, and genome stability. These small RNAs induce transcriptional or posttranscriptional
gene silencing by guiding heterochromatin formation, mRNA degradation, or translational inhibition. In this chapter, we describe
the methods for small RNA discovery in plants by small RNA cloning and deep parallel sequencing. We compare two methods of
small RNA library construction: the 5’ phosphate (P)-independent and 5’ phosphate (P)-dependent methods. Deep parallel sequencing
of small RNA libraries is discussed by comparing among 454, SBS, and SOLiD technologies.
Key words miRNA - siRNA - small RNA library construction, 454 - SBS