RNA-Seq of sika deer antler
Total RNAs were extracted using the standard protocol of the RNeasy Mini Kit (Qiagen, Valencia, CA, USA). RNA quality was assessed using the Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer. The high quality RNA (RNA integrity [RIN] score>7) were used for sequencing. The RNA-seq libraries were then generated using an rRNA depletion method. All libraries were sequenced on a HiSeq X Ten platform (Illumina) using paired-end sequencing reads of 150bp in length.