Conclusion
MicroRNAs are a post-transcriptional mechanism with potential to impact a large number of physiological systems, well suited for regulation of diapause. There are a large number of miRNAs that are differentially expressed during diapause in a dynamic manner through time, likely impacting many different systems that are vital for diapause. By searching at specific timepoints that are known to be critical for diapause regulation, we were able to find a candidate miRNA that potentially has a large impact on diapause progression by targeting genes involved in the ecdysone pathway. Our ability to connect findings to previous literature was limited by experimental design, as previous studies only used single timepoint sampling (in vs. out of diapause), and our results indicate that miRNA expression changes substantially across the different stages of diapause progression. We find that miRNAs likely both play a large and wide role in diapause phenotype by targeting many genes, potentially targeting a critical pathway at a critical time We find that miRNAs likely both play a large and wide role in diapause phenotype by targeting many genes, potentially targeting a critical pathway at a critical time. Future work should aim to link miRNAs in diapause to broader global gene expression patterns, and to mechanistically link hormonal regulation to miRNA expression.