Fig.1 Alignment analysis of mature region sequences of miR396 gene family in different plant species A and B：The most mat-miR396 sequences in plants are mainly the same as the 2 mature sequence forms of ath-miR396a-5p and ath-miR396b-5p in Arabidopsis，ath-miR396a-5p and ath-miR396b-3p have the same sequence length，but they have a different base at the end. C：The alignment of other mat-miR396 sequences except above 2 sequences in plants revealed that there is one base difference or multiple base differences between mat-miR396 sequences

Fig.2 Alignment analysis of the conserved domains of GRF protein family amino acid sequences in different plant species According to the amino acid sequence comparison analysis of GRF protein family in different plant species，it can be found that the N-terminal of GRF protein contained two conservative protein domain，QLQ and WRC. A：QLQ domain of GRF protein. In the QLQ domain，there are conserved Gln-Leu-GLn（Q-L-Q）amino acids and hydrophobic residues such as F/Phe，Y/Tyr，L/Leu，E/Glu and P/Pro，or other amino acids with similar physical and chemical properties. B：WRC domain of GRF protein. In the WRC domain，there are conserved Trp-Arg-Cys（W-R-C）amino acid residues and C3H motifs consisting of three C/Cys and an H/His. It is important to note that there is a conserved “RSRK-VE” region following the C3H motif region，its coded nucleotide sequence is the targets site of miR396 on the GRF gene

Fig.3 Action sites and splicing sites of miR396 on GRF gene sequences in different plant species A：The action site of miR396 on GRF gene. In the WRC domain of GRF protein，there is a conserved “RSRK-VE ”region，their corresponding nucleotide sequences in the genome are mostly highly conserved “CGTTCAAGAACNTGTGAA” sequences. B：Splice site of miR396 on the mRNA sequence of GRF gene. miR396 cut the mRNA sequence of GRF gene between “CGUUCAAGAA” and “AGCNUGUGGAA” site，thus negatively regulating the GRF gene expression

Fig. 4 Process of miR396-GRF module regulating plant growth and development The miR396-GRF regulatory pathway affects vegetative growth，male reproduction and fruit development by affecting cell amplification and the synthesis of GA and IAA hormones. And GIF protein and GRF protein will form a functional complex to enhance GRF function

Fig. 5 Feasible regulation approach of miR396-GRF mod-ule in the process of stress response In plants, miR396-GRF module participates in a variety of stress response processes by regulating the expression of downstream stress response related functional genes and cell proliferation