Identification of novel and differentially expressed microRNAs in ovine ovary and testis tissues using solexa sequencing and bioinformatics

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, single stranded, non-coding RNA molecules, about 19–25 nucleotides in length, which regulate the development and functions of reproductive system of mammal. To discover novel miRNAs and identify the differential expression of them in ovine ovary and testis tissues, the study constructed two libraries by using next-generation sequencing technologies (Solexa high-throughput sequencing technique). As a result, 9 321 775 and 9 511 538 clean reads were obtained from the ovary and testis separately, which included 130 562 (90 genes of ovary) and 56 272 (85 genes of testis) of known miRNAs and 486 potential novel miRNAs reads. In this study, a total of 65 conserved miRNAs were significantly differentially expressed (P