Peregrine falcon miRNA raw reads
Total RNA was extracted using the miRNeasy Protect Animal Blood Kit (Qiagen). miRNA corresponding to 18-30 nucleotides was physically isolated using PAGE gels and ligated to adapters at both 5’ and 3' ends. Reverse transcription PCR was used to amplify those RNA fragments with adapters to create cDNA constructs and fragments of 110-125 bp (miRNA   adapters) were isolated. cDNA libraries were constructed and quantified by QPCR. Libraries with concentration > 1.6 nM and content > 15*10-3 pmol were sequenced using the Illumina Hiseq 2000.