Transcriptome analysis of Snow Mountain Garlic for unravelling the organosulfur metabolic pathway

Abstract

Snow Mountain Garlic grows in the high altitudes of the Himalayas under low temperature conditions. It contains various bioactive compounds whose metabolic pathways have not been worked out at genomic level. The present work is the first report on the transcriptome sequencing of this plant. >43 million paired-end reads (301 × 2) were generated using Illumina Miseq sequencing technology. Assembling of the sequencing data resulted in 326,785 transcripts. Differentially expressed genes between the clove and leaf tissues were identified and characterized. Besides, greater emphasis was laid on the genes, which were highly expressed in clove since the latter is assumed to contain high content of the bioactive compounds. Further analysis led to the identification of the genes plausibly involved in the organosulfur metabolism. We also identified several simple sequence repeats and single nucleotide polymorphism. These constitute valuable genetic resource for research and further genetic improvement of the plant.