Transcriptome profiling of Ricinus communis under cold stress
Cold stress significantly caused dwarfism and delayed development of castor plants so that the seeds can not be fully mature before the frost. However, little is known about the molecular regulatory mechanisms of cold tolerance in Ricinus communis. Here, illumina RNA-sequencing was used to monitor the dynamic transcriptome changes of cold-tolerant cultivar Tongbi 5 exposed to 4  for 0, 2, 6, 8 h. A total of 75, 360, and 711 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified after 2h, 6h, 8h of cold stress separately and the number of up-regulated DEGs was much more than that of down-regulated DEGs with the duration of cold treatment.