RNA-seq of Zea mays W22 meiotic tassel mkaku41 mutant
RNA was isolated from three biological replicates for each genotype using Qiagen RNeasy Plant mini kit as per manufacturers instructions. Integrity of the RNA was tested using Bioanalyzer (Agilent) system. For library preparation, sample input was 400 ng total RNA (determined by Qubit RNA HS reagents, Thermo) with a RIN >7 (Bioanalyzer RNA Nano, Agilent).  Libraries were prepared with the Biomek 400 Automated Workstation (Beckman Coulter), using the NEBNEXT Ultra II RNA Library Prep kit for Illumina (New England Biolabs) according to manufacturers instructions, with an RNA fragmentation time of 15 minutes, a 1/10th dilution of NEB adaptor and 11 cycles of PCR amplification with dual-indexing primers. Amplified libraries were initially quantified by Qubit DNA HS reagents, checked for size and artifacts using Bioanalyzer DNA HS reagents and KAPA qPCR (KAPA Biosystems) was used to determine molar quantities of each library. Individual libraries were diluted and pooled equimolar, and the pool was again checked by Bioanalyzer and KAPA qPCR before submission for sequencing. RNA-seq libraries were sequenced on a Novaseq 6000 at the Translational Science Lab, College of Medicine, Florida State University. Approximately 40 million single-end 100 base reads were obtained for each biological replicate in this experiment.