Abstract: To explore the genetic basis for the nutritive value of Moringa oleifera leaves, the leaves at different developmental stages were mixed and used for transcriptome sequencing in the present study. With RNA-seq, 44 056 449 reads were generated, then assembled into 75 452 unigenes with an average length of 795.69 nt. 15 824 of these unigenes were longer than 1 kb. 30 847 unigenes were annotated by a similarity search against public databases. Of these, 18 277 unigenes were assigned into 52 GO function groups and 9 689 unigenes were annotated by COG database. 10 130 unigenes were enriched into 129 KEGG pathways, including carbon metabolism, biosynthesis of amino acids and oxidative phosphorylation.