title: Transcriptome and genome size analysis of the Venus flytrap.
abstract: The insectivorous Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) is renowned from Darwin's studies of plant carnivory and the origins of species. To provide tools to analyze the evolution and functional genomics of D. muscipula, we sequenced a normalized cDNA library synthesized from mRNA isolated from D. muscipula flowers and traps. Using the Oases transcriptome assembler 79,165,657 quality trimmed reads were assembled into 80,806 cDNA contigs, with an average length of 679 bp and an N50 length of 1,051 bp. A total of 17,047 unique proteins were identified, and assigned to Gene Ontology (GO) and classified into functional categories. A total of 15,547 full-length cDNA sequences were identified, from which open reading frames were detected in 10,941. Comparative GO analyses revealed that D. muscipula is highly represented in molecular functions related to catalytic, antioxidant, and electron carrier activities. Also, using a single copy sequence PCR-based method, we estimated that the genome size of D. muscipula is approx. 3 Gb. Our genome size estimate and transcriptome analyses will contribute to future research on this fascinating, monotypic species and its heterotrophic adaptations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Michael Krogh
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Jensen
authors.affiliation: Center for Biological Sequence Analysis, Department of Systems Biology, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark.
authors.forename: Josef Korbinian
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Vogt
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bressendorff
authors.affiliation: National High-throughput DNA Sequencing Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Andaine
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Seguin-Orlando
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Morten
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Petersen
authors.affiliation: Center for Biological Sequence Analysis, Department of Systems Biology, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sicheritz-Pontén
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mundy
mesh_terms: D031257:Droseraceae / Q000235:genetics*; D015723:Gene Library; D018745:Genome, Plant; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D059467:Transcriptome
chemical_list: D012333:RNA, Messenger