RNA-Seq of Scutellaria baicalensis: Mulched with one layer of plastic film, root
Total RNA was extracted from the 18 samples using a standard RNA extraction kit (DP441, Tiangen Biotech, Beijing, China). The concentration, purity, and integrity of the extracted RNA were assessed using a NanoDrop spectrophotometer and an Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer. RNA samples with an RNA Integrity Number greater than 8.0 were selected for library construction. Sequencing libraries were prepared using the NEBNext Ultra RNA Library Prep Kit for Illumina (NEB, Ipswich, MA, USA), and high-throughput sequencing was performed on an Illumina NovaSeq 6000 platform (Biomarker Technologies, Beijing, China). Raw sequencing reads were subjected to quality control by removing adapter sequences and low-quality reads to ensure that the percentage of bases with a quality score above 30 exceeded 94%.