title: Comparative transcriptome analysis of aboveground and underground  tissues of Rhodiola algida, an important ethno-medicinal herb endemic to  the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.
abstract: Transcriptome sequencing is a powerful tool for the assessment of gene expression and the identification and characterization of molecular markers in non-model organisms. Rhodiola algida L. (Crassulaceae), endemic to the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, has long been used in traditional Chinese medicine to prevent altitude sickness and eliminate fatigue. Illumina-based high-throughput transcriptome sequencing of aboveground and underground tissues of R. algida respectively yielded 5.40 million and 5.18 million clean reads. A total of 82,664 unigenes averaging 577 bp in length were generated from the aboveground clean reads, with 86,237 unigenes of 502-bp mean length obtained from the underground tissues. Of 55,028 unigenes compared with sequences in UniProt databases, 20,413 unigenes had significant similarities with existing sequences in NR, NT, Swiss-Prot, GO, KEGG, and COG databases. Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis identified 237,294 SNPs from 154,636 contigs of aboveground tissues and 197,540 SNPs from 144,963 underground-derived contigs. The information uncovered in this study should serve as a valuable resource for the characterization of important traits related to secondary metabolite formation and for the identification of associated molecular mechanisms.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Adaptation and Evolution of Plateau Biota, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining 810001, China.
authors.forename: Faqi
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Qingbo
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Gulzar
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.forename: Keming
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Shilong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D017343:Genes, Plant; D010946:Plants, Medicinal / Q000235:genetics*; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D029771:Rhodiola / Q000235:genetics*; D018609:Tibet; D059467:Transcriptome