Characterization of miRNA transcriptome of skeletal muscle from broiler and layer chicken lines by deep sequencing

In the current study, we expanded our previous work to identify miRNAs implicated in the myogenesis regulation through the comparison of miRNAs transcriptome in skeletal muscle tissues between broilers and layers. To address that, we firstly performed Solexa deep sequencing to profile miRNAs expressed in chicken skeletal muscle tissues. Sequence tags analyses not only enable us to report a group of highly abundant known miRNAs expressed in skeletal muscles but most importantly to identify novel putative chicken miRNAs from skeletal muscle tissue. Further miRNA transcriptome comparison and real-time RT-PCR validation experiments revealed seveal differentially expressed miRNAs between broilers and layers. Overall design: Examination of miRNA transcriptome in skeletal muscle of two kinds of chickens