Comparative microRNA-seq Analysis Depicts Candidate miRNAs Involved in Skin Color Differentiation in Red Tilapia.

Differentiation and variation in body color has been a growing limitation to the commercial value of red tilapia. Limited microRNA (miRNA) information is available on skin color differentiation and variation in fish so far. In this study， a high-throughput Illumina sequencing of sRNAs was conducted on three color varieties of red tilapia and 81，394，491 raw reads were generated. A total of 158 differentially expressed miRNAs (|log₂(fold change)| ≥ 1 and -value ≤ 0.001) were identified. Target prediction and functional analysis of color-related miRNAs showed that a variety of putative target genes—including ， and —played potential roles in pigmentation. Moreover; the miRNA-mRNA regulatory network was illustrated to elucidate the pigmentation differentiation， in which miR-138-5p and miR-722 were predicted to play important roles in regulating the pigmentation process. These results advance our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of skin pigmentation differentiation in red tilapia.