A systematic analysis of the skeletal muscle miRNA transcriptome of chicken varieties with divergent skeletal muscle growth identifies novel miRNAs and differentially expressed miRNAs

Background Functional studies have demonstrated that microRNAs (miRNAs or miRs) play critical roles in a wide spectrum of biological processes including development and disease pathogenesis. To investigate the functional roles that miRNAs play during chicken skeletal muscle development, the miRNA transcriptomes of skeletal muscles from broiler and layer chickens were profiled using Solexa deep sequencing.