title: Transcriptome Analysis of Taxillusi chinensis (DC.) Danser Seeds in Response to Water Loss.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Taxillus chinensis (DC.) Danser, the official species of parasitic loranthus that grows by parasitizing other plants, is used in various traditional Chinese medicine prescriptions. ABA-dependent and ABA-independent pathways are two major pathways in response to drought stress for plants and some genes have been reported to play a key role during the dehydration including dehydration-responsive protein RD22, late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins, and various transcription factors (TFs) like MYB and WRKY. However, genes responding to dehydration are still unknown in loranthus.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Initially, loranthus seeds were characterized as recalcitrant seeds. Then, biological replicates of fresh loranthus seeds (CK), and seeds after being dehydrated for 16 hours (Tac-16) and 36 hours (Tac-36) were sequenced by RNA-Seq, generating 386,542,846 high quality reads. A total of 164,546 transcripts corresponding to 114,971 genes were assembled by Trinity and annotated by mapping them to NCBI non-redundant (NR), UniProt, GO, KEGG pathway and COG databases. Transcriptome profiling identified 60,695, 56,027 and 66,389 transcripts (>1 FPKM) in CK, Tac-16 and Tac-36, respectively. Compared to CK, we obtained 2,102 up-regulated and 1,344 down-regulated transcripts in Tac-16 and 1,649 up-regulated and 2,135 down-regulated transcripts in Tac-36 by using edgeR. Among them some have been reported to function in dehydration process, such as RD22, heat shock proteins (HSP) and various TFs (MYB, WRKY and ethylene-responsive transcription factors). Interestingly, transcripts encoding ribosomal proteins peaked in Tac-16. It is indicated that HSPs and ribosomal proteins may function in early response to drought stress. Raw sequencing data can be accessed in NCBI SRA platform under the accession number SRA309567.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This is the first time to profile transcriptome globally in loranthus seeds. Our findings provide insights into the gene regulations of loranthus seeds in response to water loss and expand our current understanding of drought tolerance and germination of seeds.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.|Guangxi Botanical Garden of Medicinal Plants, Nanning, Guangxi, China.
authors.forename: Shugen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Xiaojun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Guangxi Botanical Garden of Medicinal Plants, Nanning, Guangxi, China.
authors.forename: Limei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.affiliation: Guangxi Botanical Garden of Medicinal Plants, Nanning, Guangxi, China.
authors.forename: Jianhua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Miao
authors.affiliation: Guangxi Botanical Garden of Medicinal Plants, Nanning, Guangxi, China.
authors.forename: Jine
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.affiliation: Yunnan Branch Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Science, Jinghong, China.
authors.forename: Longhua
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.affiliation: Yunnan Branch Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Science, Jinghong, China.
authors.forename: Zhonglian
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Yunnan Branch Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Science, Jinghong, China.
authors.forename: Yanhong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Guan
authors.affiliation: Guangxi Botanical Garden of Medicinal Plants, Nanning, Guangxi, China.
authors.forename: Changming
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mo
authors.affiliation: Guangxi Botanical Garden of Medicinal Plants, Nanning, Guangxi, China.
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Genetics, La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science (LIMS), La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: Maoshan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D003681:Dehydration / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D055864:Droughts; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D015723:Gene Library; D017343:Genes, Plant; D018525:Germination; D028183:Loranthaceae / Q000502:physiology*; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D018749:RNA, Plant / Q000235:genetics; D012639:Seeds / Q000502:physiology; D059467:Transcriptome; D014867:Water / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D010940:Plant Proteins; D018749:RNA, Plant; D014867:Water