title: Characterization of the floral transcriptome of Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis) at different flowering developmental stages by transcriptome sequencing and RNA-seq analysis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  As an arborescent and perennial plant, Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis (Carrière) J. Houzeau, synonym Phyllostachys heterocycla Carrière) is characterized by its infrequent sexual reproduction with flowering intervals ranging from several to more than a hundred years. However, little bamboo genomic research has been conducted on this due to a variety of reasons. Here, for the first time, we investigated the transcriptome of developing flowers in Moso bamboo by using high-throughput Illumina GAII sequencing and mapping short reads to the Moso bamboo genome and reference genes. We performed RNA-seq analysis on four important stages of flower development, and obtained extensive gene and transcript abundance data for the floral transcriptome of this key bamboo species.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We constructed a cDNA library using equal amounts of RNA from Moso bamboo leaf samples from non-flowering plants (CK) and mixed flower samples (F) of four flower development stages. We generated more than 67 million reads from each of the CK and F samples. About 70% of the reads could be uniquely mapped to the Moso bamboo genome and the reference genes. Genes detected at each stage were categorized to putative functional categories based on their expression patterns. The analysis of RNA-seq data of bamboo flowering tissues at different developmental stages reveals key gene expression properties during the flower development of bamboo.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We showed that a combination of transcriptome sequencing and RNA-seq analysis was a powerful approach to identifying candidate genes related to floral transition and flower development in bamboo species. The results give a better insight into the mechanisms of Moso bamboo flowering and ageing. This transcriptomic data also provides an important gene resource for improving breeding for Moso bamboo.
authors.affiliation: International Center for Bamboo and Rattan, Key Laboratory of Bamboo and Rattan Science and Technology, State Forestry Administration, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: International Center for Bamboo and Rattan, Key Laboratory of Bamboo and Rattan Science and Technology, State Forestry Administration, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: International Center for Bamboo and Rattan, Key Laboratory of Bamboo and Rattan Science and Technology, State Forestry Administration, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Chunling
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: International Center for Bamboo and Rattan, Key Laboratory of Bamboo and Rattan Science and Technology, State Forestry Administration, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Feiyan
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Qi
authors.affiliation: International Center for Bamboo and Rattan, Key Laboratory of Bamboo and Rattan Science and Technology, State Forestry Administration, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Xueping
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: International Center for Bamboo and Rattan, Key Laboratory of Bamboo and Rattan Science and Technology, State Forestry Administration, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Shaohua
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mu
authors.affiliation: International Center for Bamboo and Rattan, Key Laboratory of Bamboo and Rattan Science and Technology, State Forestry Administration, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Zhenhua
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Peng
mesh_terms: D016000:Cluster Analysis; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods; D066264:Datasets as Topic; D035264:Flowers / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D018745:Genome, Plant; D023281:Genomics; D059014:High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D006109:Poaceae / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000378:metabolism; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D059467:Transcriptome
chemical_list: D014157:Transcription Factors