Full-length transcriptome analysis reveals candidate genes involved in terpenoid biosynthesis in Artemisia argyi

Artemisia argyi is an important medicinal plant widely utilized for moxibustion heat therapy in China. The terpenoid biosynthesis process in A. argyi is speculated to play a key role in conferring its medicinal value. Yet the molecular mechanism underlying terpenoid biosynthesis remains unclear, in part because the reference genome of A. argyi is unavailable. Moreover, the full-length transcriptome of A. argyi has yet to be sequenced. Therefore, in this study de novo transcriptome sequencing of A. argyi’s root, stem and leaf tissues was performed to obtain those candidate genes related to terpenoid biosynthesis, by combining the PacBio single-molecule real-time (SMRT) and Illumina sequencing NGS platforms. These respectively generated more than 55.4 Gb of sequencing data and 108,846 full-length reads (non-chimeric) were generated by the Illumina and PacBio platform, respectively. Then, 53,043 consensus isoforms were clustered and used to represent 36,820 non-redundant transcripts, of wh...艾（Artemisia argyi）是我国广泛应用于艾灸热疗的重要药用植物。其萜类生物合成过程被认为在赋予该物种药用价值方面发挥关键作用。然而，萜类生物合成的分子机制仍不明确，这在一定程度上是由于目前尚未获得艾草的参考基因组。此外，艾草的全长转录组仍未完成测序。因此，本研究结合PacBio单分子实时测序（Single-Molecule Real-Time, SMRT）与Illumina二代测序（Next-Generation Sequencing, NGS）平台，对艾草的根、茎、叶组织进行从头转录组测序，以获取与萜类生物合成相关的候选基因。其中，Illumina与PacBio平台分别产出了超过55.4 Gb的测序数据，以及108,846条非嵌合全长读段。随后，研究人员聚类得到53,043个一致性异构体，用以代表36,820个非冗余转录本，其中……