Tissue-specific comparative transcriptome analysis reveals candidate genes involved in lignans biosynthesis in Saururus chinensis

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the functional genes involved in the lignans biosynthesis in Saururus chinensis. Methods: An RNA-Seq based tissue-specific comparative transcriptome analysis of S. chinensis leaves and rhizomes was performed, and an up-to-date bioinformatical analysis was carried out to discover the candidate functional genes. mRNA expression of part of the candidate genes were confirmed by qRT-PCR. Results: According to the De novo transcriptome assembly, 49 430 unigenes in S. chinensis were presented and 33 222 unigenes (67.21%) were functionally annotated. Successively, 13 031 (26.36%) differentially expressed genes were filtered, and then GO and KEGG classification and enrichment analysis combined Swissprot function prediction revealed twenty-eight candidate genes encoding twelve enzymes involved in lignans biosynthesis pathways. The qRT-PCR results were consistent with the RNA-Seq analysis for the candidate genes. Conclusion: These results enrich our knowledge on lignans biosynthesis-related functional genes and facilitate further synthetic biology research on specific lignans in S. chinensis.

Keywords

• Saururus chinensis
• RNA-Seq
• Comparative transcriptome analysis
• Lignans
• Candidate genes