Validation of candidate miRNA and miRNA-target pairs in the Jiuyuan black fowl

The Jiuyuan black fowl (Gallus Domesticus) is similar with Luhua bird, which has been recognized as a commercial dual-purpose egg-meat type chicken, but Luhua bird has a more superior reproductive performance such as high rates of egg production. Four hundred Jiuyuan black fowls from the Experimental Chicken Farm of Sichuan Agricultural University were used in this study. The processes of samples selection, tissues collection, RNA extraction and RT-qPCR validation of miRNAs and genes expression were according to previous described methods. The reproductive performance information of selected chicken samples was shown in Additional file 2: Table S1 and Additional file 1: Figure S2. The RT-qPCR primers of miRNAs and genes were listed in Additional file 2: Table S2. In addition, the expression levels of 5.8S rRNA and GAPDH were used to normalize the RT-qPCR results for each miRNA and gene, respectively.