approached significanceP = 0.07
Moreover, an effect of follicle status ( P < 0.05), owing to overall higher expression levels in atretic follicles, was detected for all miRNAs except miR-21-5p and miR-378; for miR-378, an interaction approached significance ( P = 0.07), reflecting higher expression levels in granulosa but not theca cells from atretic follicles. 3.2 Identification and expression analyses of miRNA targets To identify putative targets of the 9 miRNAs in cattle, we used miRTarBase, a database containing experimentally validated targets of human, mouse, and rat miRNAs, and we selected 36 genes that were simultaneous targets of ≥2 of those miRNAs ( Table S1 ).