Table 1. Cell sizes and estimated number of total RNA and mRNA molecules per cell.

	Cell biovolume (μm^3)	Total RNA molecules per cella	mRNA molecules per cellb
P. tricornotum	60–170 μm3	125 000	1250–6290
Heterocapsa sp.	1000–4000 μm3	2 750 000	27 500–137 500
T. thermophila	15000 μm3	4 649 000	46 490–232 450

The number of RNA molecules calculated from the amount of total RNA extracted and the number of cells used for the RNA extractions.

^aAssuming RNA extraction efficiency was 50% and an average mRNA transcript length of 1000 nt

^bAssuming 1–5% of total RNA was mRNA. (according to Liu et al. 2017)