aly-miR168a-5p: Aly-mir168a-5p is a miRNA that was selected as a target gene in a study [PMC8304282]. The study investigated the expression patterns of three miRNAs (aly-miR164c-5p, aly-mir168a-5p, and smo-miR396) under various stresses or in different tissues [PMC8304282]. The expression levels of smo-miR396 and aly-mir168a-5p were found to be downregulated under salt and ABA treatments when using unstable reference genes (RGs) [PMC8304282]. Similarly, under heat/drought/GA3 treatments, the expression levels of smo-miR396 and aly-mir168a-5p were often underestimated when using unstable RGs [PMC8304282]. The study used stable and unstable RGs to assess the expression of the target miRNAs and found that unstable RGs led to incorrect estimation or misestimation of miRNA expression levels or trends [PMC8304282]. Aly-miR164c-5p, aly-mir168a-5p, and smo-miR396 were highly expressed in stems or seeds, but their expression levels were often misestimated when using unstable RGs compared to stable RGs [PMC8304282]. Under cold treatment, the expression of aly-mir168a-5p was downregulated when using stable RGs but upregulated when using unstable internal control genes [PMC8304282]. Reference: [PMC8304282]