Abstract
Rat is one of the most widely-used models in chemical safety evaluation and biomedical research. However, the knowledge about its microRNA (miRNA) expression patterns across multiple organs and various developmental stages is still limited. Here, we constructed a comprehensive rat miRNA expression BodyMap using a diverse collection of 320 RNA samples from 11 organs of both sexes of juvenile, adolescent, adult and aged Fischer 344 rats with four biological replicates per group. Following the Illumina TruSeq Small RNA protocol, an average of 5.1 million 50 bp single-end reads was generated per sample, yielding a total of 1.6 billion reads. The quality of the resulting miRNA-seq data was deemed to be high from raw sequences, mapped sequences, and biological reproducibility. Importantly, aliquots of the same RNA samples have previously been used to construct the mRNA BodyMap. The currently presented miRNA-seq dataset along with the existing mRNA-seq dataset from the same RNA samples provides a unique resource for studying the expression characteristics of existing and novel miRNAs, and for integrative analysis of miRNA-mRNA interactions, thereby facilitating better utilization of rats for biomarker discovery.