The RNA Assembly of a Panax notoginseng root sample. Panax notoginseng

The root of a Panax notoginseng plant grown in Wenshan County, Yunnan, China was frozen in liquid nitrogen immediately. The sample was stored at -80 degrees Celsius until RNA was extracted. Total RNA was extracted from root tissue using the Trizol reagent (Invitrogen, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., USA) according to the manufacturer's protocol. The integrity of the RNA was checked using an ultraviolet spectrophotometer (Hoefer, MA, USA), based on the ratio of the optical density at 260 nm to that at 280 nm (OD260/280) and was also assessed by electrophoresis in a denaturing formaldehyde agarose gel, based on visual comparison with the 18S and 28S ribosomal RNAs. The obtained RNA was sequenced using Illumina HiSeq2000 sequencer. The obtained sequences were assembled using Trinity (v2.0.6). The obtained transcripts were used to identify pre-miRNAs, TAS3, and coding genes as targets of miRNAs and tasiRNAs.