De Novo Assembly and Characterization of the Transcriptome of the Chinese Medicinal Herb, Gentiana rigescens

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Xiaodong Zhang³  Andrew C. Allan²  Caixia Li³  Yuanzhong Wang⁴  Qiuyang Yao¹ 

[1] University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, China; E-Mail:;Plant and Food Research, Mt Albert Research Centre, Private Bag, Auckland 92169, New Zealand; E-Mail:;College of Resources and Environment, Yuxi Normal University, Yuxi 653100, China; E-Mails:;Institute of Medicinal Plants, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Kunming 650223, China

关键词: Gentiana rigescens;    gentiopicroside;    regulation;    transcriptome;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms160511550

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Gentiana rigescens is an important medicinal herb in China. The main validated medicinal component gentiopicroside is synthesized in shoots, but is mainly found in the plant’s roots. The gentiopicroside biosynthetic pathway and its regulatory control remain to be elucidated. Genome resources of gentian are limited. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies can aid in supplying global gene expression profiles. In this study we present sequence and transcript abundance data for the root and leaf transcriptome of G. rigescens, obtained using the Illumina Hiseq2000. Over fifty million clean reads were obtained from leaf and root libraries. This yields 76,717 unigenes with an average length of 753 bp. Among these, 33,855 unigenes were identified as putative homologs of annotated sequences in public protein and nucleotide databases. Digital abundance analysis identified 3306 unigenes differentially enriched between leaf and root. Unigenes found in both tissues were categorized according to their putative functional categories. Of the differentially expressed genes, over 130 were annotated as related to terpenoid biosynthesis. This work is the first study of global transcriptome analyses in gentian. These sequences and putative functional data comprise a resource for future investigation of terpenoid biosynthesis in Gentianaceae species and annotation of the gentiopicroside biosynthetic pathway and its regulatory mechanisms.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.