Fig. 1: The nuclear export efficiency of precursor miR-276 (pre-miR-276) in terminal oocytes of gregarious locusts (G) is higher than solitarious locusts (S).

a Ovarioles from G and S (scale bar: 0.5 mm). b-c Amplification of miR-276 (b; n = 5 biologically independent locusts) and primary miR-276 (pri-miR-276) (c). The experiment in (c) (bottom) was performed twice, and the arrow indicates the amplicon band of partial pri-miR-276. d Expression of miR-276 in HEK 293T cells transfected with pcDNA-pri-miR-276 (pri-miR-276) (n = 5 biologically independent cell samples). NC: cells transfected with empty vectors. e-g Detection of pri-miR-276 (e), pre-miR-276 (f), and miR-276/pre-miR-276 ratios (g) in terminal oocytes (n = 6, 5, and 5 biologically independent locusts for e and f, and g, respectively). h-j Nuclear export efficiency of pre-miR-276 in locust terminal oocytes, determined by qPCR (h; n = 4 and 5 biologically independent locusts for G and S, respectively) and FISH assay (i and j; For j, n = 7 and 10 biologically independent locusts for G and S, respectively). U6 and 18S were used as nuclear and cytoplasmic markers, respectively (h). The localization of pre-miR-276 in nucleus and cytoplasm is indicated by arrowhead and arrow, respectively. The nucleus of the terminal oocytes is delineated by a white dotted line circle. Scale bar: 100 μm (i). In the diagram of the amplification primers for miR-276 (b) and pri-miR-276 (c), locations of pre-miR-276 and miR-276 are labeled in red. F forward primer; R reverse primer. Statistically significant differences between groups in (d) are shown by different letters using one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s post hoc tests with two-stage step-up method of Benjamini, Krieger and Yekutieli adjustment for multigroup comparisons. Mann–Whitney U test (two-tailed) was applied for two-group comparisons in (g) and (h), and Student’s t test (two-tailed) was applied for other two-group comparisons. The data are shown as the mean ± SEM. * P < 0.05, *** P < 0.001. The original scans for Figs. 1c and 1h are provided in Supplementary Fig. 15a and 15b, respectively. Source data and details of the statistical results are provided as a Source Data file.