**3. Role of sRNAs in plant nutrition**

Induction of miRNAs regulates the expression of an array of genes and promotes plant nutritional homeostasis. Owing high-throughput RNASeq techniques and target prediction tools the role of ncRNAs in nutrition and stress signaling has been investigated in recent past. Majorly the role of ncRNAs in nitrogen (N), phosphate (Pi) and sulfur (S) homeostasis has been discussed below:

### **3.1 Nitrogen**

Evidence for miRNAs controlling nitrogen responses in plants has been illustrated [26, 27]. Up-regulation of pri-miRNA156, pri-miRNA447c and down-regulation of pri-miRNA169 and pri-miR398a has been characterized in Arabidopsis under nitrogen-deficient conditions [28]. Expression of nitrogen responsive miRNA, like miRNA160, miRNA167, miRNA168 in the maize roots and miRNA164, miRNA171 in shoots whereas, miRNA169 in both are reported under nitrogen-limiting conditions [27]. Similarly, several nitrogen-responsive miRNAs have been investigated in legumes, for instance, a total of altered expressions of 168 miRNAs are reported in limiting-nitrogen-tolerant and limiting-nitrogen-sensitive genotype of soybean using RNASeq [26]. A down-regulation of miRNA2606a/b-3p and up-regulation of miRNA1512a-5p was found in limiting-nitrogen-tolerant and limiting-nitrogensensitive genotype respectively. Moreover, mRNA transcripts encoding Cathepsin and E3-Ubiquitin ligase protein were found to be targeted and degraded by miRNA396b/g-5p and miRNA156b/6f-5p respectively under nitrogen stress.
