Table 2.

Numbers of unigenes that had differential expression patterns between each two-sample combination

Samples	Up-regulated	Down-regulated
L/T	196	196
L/M	199	191
L/B	173	151
T/M	161	134
T/B	165	125
M/B	28	16

Numbers were calculated by comparing the earlier samples to the latter ones. For instance, numbers in the last row represented 28 and 16 unigenes were up- and down-regulated in sample M compared to sample B. Unigenes were up-regulated when the q-value < 0.001 and log₂(Fold_change) normalized >1, or down-regulated when the q-value < 0.001 and log₂(Fold_change) normalized < -1 (detailed in Additional file 10).