Fig. 4

Relative abundance of candidate miRNAs at different development stages of C. septempunctata as determined by RT-qPCR. E represent 1-day eggs; L1, L2, L3 and L4 represent first, second, third and fourth instar larvae; Pre-present 1-day pupae; and A represent 1-day old adults, respectively. Each developmental stage was analyzed with three biological samples and each sample was run with three technical replicates. Different letters above the standard error bars indicate significant differences based on ANOVA followed by Tukey’s HSD multiple comparison test (P < 0.05). U6 was used as an internal reference gene to normalize the differences among the samples. Fold of each candidate miRNAs expression were calculated based on the 1- day eggs expressions in the developmental stage