title: De Novo transcriptome characterization of Dracaena cambodiana and analysis of genes involved in flavonoid accumulation during formation of dragon's blood.
abstract: Dragon's blood is a red resin mainly extracted from Dracaena plants, and has been widely used as a traditional medicine in East and Southeast Asia. The major components of dragon's blood are flavonoids. Owing to a lack of Dracaena plants genomic information, the flavonoids biosynthesis and regulation in Dracaena plants remain unknown. In this study, three cDNA libraries were constructed from the stems of D. cambodiana after injecting the inducer. Approximately 266.57 million raw sequencing reads were de novo assembled into 198,204 unigenes, of which 34,873 unique sequences were annotated in public protein databases. Many candidate genes involved in flavonoid accumulation were identified. Differential expression analysis identified 20 genes involved in flavonoid biosynthesis, 27 unigenes involved in flavonoid modification and 68 genes involved in flavonoid transport that were up-regulated in the stems of D. cambodiana after injecting the inducer, consistent with the accumulation of flavonoids. Furthermore, we have revealed the differential expression of transcripts encoding for transcription factors (MYB, bHLH and WD40) involved in flavonoid metabolism. These de novo transcriptome data sets provide insights on pathways and molecular regulation of flavonoid biosynthesis and transport, and improve our understanding of molecular mechanisms of dragon's blood formation in D. cambodiana.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetic Resources of Tropical Crops, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Tropical Bioscience and Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, No. 4 Xueyuan Road, Haikou 571101, China.
authors.forename: Jia-Hong
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetic Resources of Tropical Crops, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Tropical Bioscience and Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, No. 4 Xueyuan Road, Haikou 571101, China.
authors.forename: Tian-Jun
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetic Resources of Tropical Crops, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Tropical Bioscience and Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, No. 4 Xueyuan Road, Haikou 571101, China.
authors.forename: Hao-Fu
authors.initials: HF
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetic Resources of Tropical Crops, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Tropical Bioscience and Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, No. 4 Xueyuan Road, Haikou 571101, China.
authors.forename: Hui-Liang
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetic Resources of Tropical Crops, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Tropical Bioscience and Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, No. 4 Xueyuan Road, Haikou 571101, China.
authors.forename: Dong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetic Resources of Tropical Crops, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Tropical Bioscience and Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, No. 4 Xueyuan Road, Haikou 571101, China.
authors.forename: Wen-Li
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Mei
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetic Resources of Tropical Crops, Ministry of Agriculture, Institute of Tropical Bioscience and Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, No. 4 Xueyuan Road, Haikou 571101, China.
authors.forename: Shi-Qing
authors.initials: SQ
authors.lastname: Peng
mesh_terms: D051792:Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D031409:Dracaena / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D005419:Flavonoids / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000235:genetics; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D015723:Gene Library; D063990:Gene Ontology; D059014:High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing; D006801:Humans; D008519:Medicine, Traditional; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D010936:Plant Extracts / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D018547:Plant Stems / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D059467:Transcriptome; D000071678:WD40 Repeats
chemical_list: D051792:Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Proteins; D005419:Flavonoids; D010936:Plant Extracts; D010940:Plant Proteins; C525191:dragon's blood