Investigation of the microRNAs in safflower seed, leaf and petal by high-throughput sequencing. Carthamus tinctorius

We report that there are at least 236 known miRNAs expressed in safflower, of which 100 miRNAs with relatively high expression level exhibited evolutionary conservation across multiple plants. Comparison of their expression patterns among different tissues shows that a total of 116, 133 and 128 miRNAs are significantly differentially expressed between safflower seed/leaf, seed/petal and leaf/petal. Meanwhile, interestingly, the majority of the most significantly differentially expressed miRNAs between tissues are tissue-specific miRNAs. In addition, 15 putative novel miRNAs have been identified in safflower. The small RNA transcriptomes obtained in this study provide a basis for further investigation of the physiological roles of identified miRNAs in safflower. Overall design: Investigate the small RNA transcriptomes in 3 tissues