show Abstracthide AbstractThis study aimed to compare the growth characteristics of Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans under electroautotrophic (ea) and chemoautotrophic (ca) conditions. RNA was extracted from a total of 50 mg of A. ferrooxidans cells (at the exponential phase: ea, T=48h; ca, T=60h) using TRIzol Reagent according to the manufacturer's instructions. RNA quality was assessed using a 5300 Bioanalyser (Agilent) and quantified with nanodrop (ND-2000, NanoDrop Technologies). Only high-quality RNA samples (OD260/280=1.8-2.2, OD260/230>=2.0, RIN>=6.5, 28S:18S>=1.0, quantity>1ug) were used for library construction. SmallRNA libraries were generated following the manufacturer's recommendations using the QIAseqmiRNA Library Kit (Qiagen). The RNA libraries were generated using the Illumina Stranded Total RNA Prep with Ribo-Zero Plus and were sequenced using an Illumina NovaSeq 6000. Three replicates of electroautotrophically grown cells serve as the experimental group whereas three replicates of chemoautotrophically grown cells serve as the control group, hereafter referred to as "ea" and "ca", respectively.