Purification of mitochondria from skeletal muscle tissue for transcriptomic analyses reveals localization of nuclear-encoded non-coding RNAs [L6 mito]

MiRNAs are non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression. MiRNAs mostly localise within the cytosol but are also found in the mitochondria where they can regulate the expression of mitochondrial-encoded transcripts. Small RNA library preparation protocols are well described when using total cellular RNA as the template, however, these methods are not directly applicable to total RNA extracted from fractionated cells, such as isolated mitochondria. The aim of this study was to optimise the small RNA library preparation protocol for use with small (<60ng) amounts of total mitochondrial RNA.