show Abstracthide AbstractChinese cordyceps is of particular interest for its confined distribution, mysterious lifecycle, ecological importance and developmental biology. The large scale artificial cultivation of this fungus has been succeeded in China until recently but with low efficiency and high cost being ascribed to too much unsolved biological issues, such as gene expression during development and the sexuality reproduction. The success of artificial cultivation provides the convenient for sampling during the different development stages. Overall design: Retinal mRNA profiles ofdifferent developmental stages of O. sinensis including hyphae (HY), sclerotium (ST), primordium (PR), young fruitbody (YF), developed fruitbody (FD) and mature fruit body (MF), were generated by deep sequencing, in triplicate, using Illumina Hiseq 2000.